Random Happenings

These things have happened in the last 16 or so hours hours:

I freaked out about a meeting of senior management and medical directors that I was supposed to attend today, and consequently bought a new shirt and some trousers to wear to the meeting so as to not look like a grungy manager. Wore new clothing to meeting, didn't say a word... Boss Lady took over the presentation. But I looked presentable as I sat next to her.

I just saw someone post on Facebook that Bridal Showers are a great way to "stalk" your kitchens. I had a split second of utter panic: "Who's stalking my kitchen? Why? Am I in danger from some dark kitchen killer?" before I realized what she meant. Spelling matters, people.

I picked up my journal for the first time in two years last night. There were some things I needed to purge, and my journal was the only appropriate forum.

I started a new poem.

This song:



I laughed really hard at this from Married to the Sea:

I cried. It wasn't a very cleansing cry, though, so I anticipate another one coming shortly.

I had a lengthy and pitiful discussion with myself about... oh, about a lot of things. What my job means, why I'm doing it (benefits, mostly), how I reconcile myself to knowing that I'm captaining a sinking ship here, and wondering what the fix is. A self-assessment of health. A long look in the mirror (I mean literally, not figuratively). There were other things, but those went in the journal. And this whole scene was where the tears came in. This discussion wasn't productive, nor did it make me feel better. I think tonight it will be a lengthy and less pitiful prayer.

I read this poem: "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" by Billy Collins, and it soothed me.

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure--if it is a pleasure--
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one--
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table--
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandanna

sitting in a small, green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

 And Diet Coke. Diet Coke happened.