I have suffered a disaster. I had hoped to return to work. Now I know I can't. I tried. I had to walk to get to places to do my work, couldn't just sit there. I left at 2, defeated, in too much pain to even concentrate. I am not very much better now. Too much walking has left a residue of pain and wiped out any gain I may have made over the last week of staying home. I have placed the table leaf under my couch cushion to stiffen the "bed" (I am using my couch because I can elevate my legs better). I had to call my boss and say all this, offer to get out of the way. I will stay home tomorrow and probably go in the next day to hand my work off to someone else. That means I may not get back to work for a while, just because there won't be any with someone else doing it. But I won't be returning for a while anyway because I can't physically do it. Terrible. I have no idea how long this back thing is going to take.
In the meantime, unrelated, they have me on a 24 hour blood pressure monitor (every 20 min. or so) to see if they can better time when I should take my heart meds. This all makes me sound like some kind of invalid. I don't feel like one in most ways.
This back thing is just too odd. I don't understand how it started (somehow in my sleep) and it is most like sciatica but then not really. I can twist and bend and do all the things I would think I shouldn't be able to do. I am not any more "stiff" than usual. I just can't walk very far without the pain starting and then building to the yelping level. It doesn't even really shoot down my leg much like it is supposed to, just sits in my hip quietly and manageably until I walk too far (which of course is not far at all).
****************************
I am not sure of my ground here. Don't ask me what this poem means. As noted, this is a poem from February, and not about my situation now. I have no idea what it could have been about then. I can say in general I am a rather good photo subject. My deceased wife on the other hand was one of those unfortunates. She was a plain woman verging on pretty in some ways, but almost never took a good photo. For every good photo of her there were at least ten that lied about her, made her look awful. For me, I think one in three or four make me look decidedly better than I am in person, and most of the rest match me. Sometimes I look like a dog. That would be true of everyone. The camera eye is strange that way. I am told television is worse for many but I wouldn't know. Whenever I have seen myself on tv, I think I look like me.
The voice recorder is another thing. I hate my recorded voice pretty much, don't think it sounds like me, hope, really hope it doesn't. Anyway, I can't give a context to this poem. I can say it is one I rather like though.
Or Maybe My Eyes Are Dumb
My thumb is too fat,
my fingers much too rigid
and anyway I
find this shot very
unbecoming to the fine
shape of my glad hand.
Maybe you've taken
an allegory, my hand
standing for some clod.
February 20, 2009 10:22 AM
Contraction
1 week ago
I do not like to think of you in pain...:(
ReplyDeleteDo you ever look in the mirror and wonder if every one else sees the same thing you do?
If your idea of blue is the same as mine?
Gotta love the human mind.......
xxx
I don't like to think of me in pain either. I have been unhappy hearing of your difficulties too.
ReplyDeleteI think of blue as a cool color, red as a warm color. Bet you do too. In that sort of way we do get agreement quite often, I think.
Yeah, and then I went to art school and learned that there are warm blues and cool reds.....sigh.
ReplyDeleteI think I drank the brain cells required for me to remember how all that worked though....
xxx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE&feature=email
ReplyDeleteHow do you make a comment a link? I thought you'd like this...I did :)
xxx
Michelle, isn't it true that when you warm up a cool color it is by adding the warm hue to it? That is, a mix of red and blue in terms of light (which yields a purple if I remember, is both a warming of blue and a cooling of red). And isn't it true that humans tend to agree about that kind of language too?
ReplyDeleteAs for the links, they are achieved by using the "a" "ref" format which is javascript. Those are the use of HTML "a" tags, permitted as is noted below the comment box along with the "b" opening and "/b" closing tags for bold and the "i" and "/i" tags for italic. What I did was take that format and save it as a small file somewhere so I could plug it in my comments and then replace the meat of it with the new link I was making. One way to make this link any time is to write a dummy post, where it is a hot button as part of the post writing tools and then paste it from there. Cumbersome but doable.
Right click on here to see the embedded url as part of "properties" but if you switch to the edit html box in the create post window after making a link there you will find the html language format exposed. Copy that into your comment box. It will work fine. That's what I just did. Someone else may be able to teach us both a quicker way.
Curandera
ReplyDeleteI would take your pain,
hold it like an egg until
it warms in my hands,
turning it over
every few hours
until it hatches. A soft
yellow chick would tap
through, and with my thumbs
I’d gently widen the rent
in the shell to set
this new life free. Free,
I would hear you sigh,
nerves finally eased
with the release of this long,
low sweet gestation.
You ought to take an extended vacation if things are this severe. A well-deserved rest and respite. Hope things improve for you, man...
ReplyDelete{{{Rachel}}
ReplyDeleteWould that you could reach from your mount upon the great white stallion, reach down and touch me just like that. I believe in you.
Joseph, thank you for your concern. It is indeed that bad when I walk any distance at all.
"Or Maybe My Eyes Are Dumb". Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI want some of what Rachel has.
Wishing you relief and peace, dear Christopher.
ReplyDeleteI like the poem. I never liked my hands, then got used to them. I took a photo of my hand on a tree trunk once and it looked awful again, and reminded me of my mother's hands, which weren't awful but were hers not mine, so it was a shock to see.
But maybe if it were an allegory...
Yes indeedy, I am my mother's allegory...
ReplyDelete