kellementology

life according to me

Tag: thoughts

  • Carly Simon and Memories about Choices

    Carly Simon and Memories about Choices

     

    Yesterday was a marathon of driving from one end of the county to the opposite and in weather more conducive to July than November.  To be more accurate, it’s cooler in July here than it has been the last many days.  I’ve given up wishing and hoping for weather that smells and feels like Fall, let alone the winter that is barely four weeks away.

    But when I’ve got a task to do that should have been completed weeks ago, I set my route and try not to think about it.  I just go, like I’m on auto pilot.  First one store, then the next.  Speak with one salesperson, then another — all the while taking mental notes and feeling my brain ready to explode with so many others’ opinions.

    I’d say that it’s because I’m thorough, but it’s closer to being an approval problem.

    Carly Simon helped.  Helped with the searching — not the approval problem.  I rarely listen to music while I’m in the car preferring quiet more, but felt I needed something to get me in and out of the car with each stop I made.  So Carly it was — and only because I sadly do not carry CDs in my car, let alone an iPod.

    My afternoon of driving was saturated with memories of the who and what I used to be when “Anticipation” and “You’re So Vain” could be heard on the radio when people actually listened to music on radios.  But my favorite was  “That’s the Way I Always Heard it Should Be,” the haunting melody something I loved even though at that point in my life, I wouldn’t have been able to relate to the words — a giving up of one’s self to something others did just because that’s what was done.

    I was too naive to see things that way.  I was too busy looking for fairy tales of my own and thinking they were something that existed instead of something created.  It takes a few mistakes to arrive at that conclusion.

    “But you say it’s time we moved in together/Raised a family of our own you and me/Well that’s the way I’ve always heard it should be/You want to marry me/We’ll marry…’

    I had no remorse about the eventuality of marriage because all of the other strings attached to the decision  were far more interesting, like having an engagement ring, choosing fabric for a dress I would make myself, selecting perfect invitations, a just right location.  You’re thinking there’s a minor problem with that line of thinking, yes?  The matter of “choosing to spend my life with someone who would never have understood me” type of a problem.

    “The couples cling and claw/And drown in love’s debris./You say we’ll soar like two birds through the clouds,/ But soon you’ll cage me on your shelf — I’ll never learn to be just me first,/By myself…”

    No, we didn’t get married.  The invitations were never ordered and the ring was given back.

    Funny what a song can make you remember, isn’t it?

    But I did end up finding what I was looking for on my marathon search yesterday.  It’s a vanity of sorts for part of our home renovation work.  I know you may not quite “see” it the way I do, and that it’s different than what you might put in your home.  I’m used to that.

    It’s because somehow along the way, I’ve learned to be just me first, by myself.

    Or — that I’ve already polled a zillion people on the choice since gawd forbid someone besides myself will have to look at it while they’re sitting on the toilet and think, “What in hell was that woman thinking?”

    But I’m used to people not seeing what I see in life and understand.

    You can still throw in your two cents worth on the vanity if you want.

    Yes, it's for the bathroom.

    Still not convinced?

    After all, it’s just a bathroom vanity, right?

    But when I look at it from now on, I will most likely hear Carly Simon’s melody reminding me that I have made some amazingly good choices in life.

  • Oh Look. Writing.

    Somehow, all the time I used to look forward to — all the time I spent thinking about what I might write here is gone.  The unfortunate aspect of this is that the writing voice I hear during the day has faded, its insistent prodding, its litany of opening lines, and reminders of possible topics have been pushed aside by life.  And what a small life it is.

    Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

    It should be, but I don’t have the time right now to make it that way.  Too much dust and food, and excuses.  It isn’t that I don’t want to write here.  Honestly.  It’s more about the type of writer I am.

    I have to use a food analogy.  Sorry.

    If you turn the burner on low and let the water simmer, then turn up the heat as the water approaches the boil, then that would be me.  There’s no turning me on high and cutting to the chase.  I could do that if I wanted, but what’s the point?

    Writing is a catharsis for me and if I can’t spend the time, then the words stay in my mind.  And I’m egotistical enough to know that once I’ve formed the perfect line of words to convey the just right thought, they’ll be forgotten unless I write them down.  It’s sad.

    I do get credit for:

    1) working on a cookbook for a friend which entailed making most of the recipes and snapping photos, right?

    2) spending more time than I wanted –surprisingly — looking at products for our home renovation.

    3)  getting ready to visit several blogging friends for a week!

    4)  having to reposition myself in my home while contractors tear it to shreds and dust settles on every possible surface.

    Excuses.

    Sad, because so much has happened that I have thoughts about — some lovely, and others, not so much.  And all of which would have been written at one point in time.  But no.  And it’s horrible.

    The other problem is, even if I write here, everyone has either left the building, or has stopped writing, their bloggy wonderfulness seemingly forever ended, their words and photos, just sitting, no longer collecting comments.  *sigh*

    What to do?

    Sign up for that writing class at UCSD extension so I’ll actually write?  Continue to wallow through this strange new life of mine?

    What?

  • Bloggoversary Stats and Memory Lane

    Last night, I couldn’t sleep for some reason, so I found myself as I have so many times in the past sitting here, staring at my Mac. Midnight is most likely not a great time to open Firefox Firebug for the very first time (thanks very much Scott!) oohing and aahing over the newness of it all.

    But I had just finished going through the comments pages on my dashboard , reliving the evolution of my patch of space in Bloggsville and remembering just how things have come to pass. For those of you who are number starved, and whom I promise to continue to try and understand, I’ve included some stats. Hold on to yourself, please.

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  • Almost a bloggoversary

    The anniversary of my first year as a bonafide blogger is approaching. You might think, “So what,” at first notice, but there is so much more that I’m mulling over.

    My blogroll is one of them. Although it’s changed depending on the mood I’ve been in, or what mattered on a given day, it’s remained remarkably the same since I began a year ago on March 15th.

    The Ides of March?

    (more…)

  • Thinking About Dog Turds, Dead Birds & Report Cards

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Sometimes, life leaves you little packages. Some are pleasant, and others require thought. A few are earned, and the rest may be deposited with you whether you want them or not. They make you wince, hold your breath, shake your head in disgust, or shed tears of remorse. Yesterday was one of those days. A thinking type of day.

    Thinking about things like:

    • What that thing was on the third riser from the top on the staircase. That rounded, dark-looking, too big to be one of the RT’s mishmash of military paraphernalia. That…glob…leaning up against the wall. Did the doggo drop a piece of her load on the rug? No. Can’t be. But there it was in all its glory, a turdlett, most likely left accidentally on her way out the door first thing in the morning. She just couldn’t make it. Somehow she knew that I had found it, and avoided making eye contact as I carried it to the trash, her eyes flicking up and away, knowing she had been caught and was embarrassed.
    • Or the sweet little yellow-headed bird Blaxter brought up to me like he was awarding me a bouquet of roses — his mouth full of feathers after laying the no longer breathing feathered beauty softly at my side on the rug. His green eyes searching my face for a response for his deed of gift-giving. What possessed him after eight years to catch a bird? I patted him on the head, gave him a few scratches and rubs, and carefully scooped up the poor bird to take it somewhere a bit more respectful for a while. No little boys at home any more to coo over the loss, and with whom to hold a ceremony. And just a patio with no land or space of dirt to dig a hole and bury it.
    • Or the report card. The RT’s. One last stretch until the end of the semester. Until the end of his first year in high school. A decent report card– excellent in some areas (Biology), definite work needed in others (The Geometry Teacher’s Class). The report card felt more mine than his. What can I have done to support him more? How do we instill in him the need to engage? To connect the dots. To join the world of the practical. Maybe he has it right, and everyone else has it wrong. “RT, I really need you to hop up and down, pull your hair out, look generally miserable about school and stress out about everything that’s going on. You know?” It’s funny that when I remember being in ninth grade–and I do clearly–homework was insignificant, the assignments required little thought, and my classes were less than inspiring. I went every day, did what was expected of me, and spent almost no energy on any of it–but not consciously. So what am I complaining about?

    My ultimate report card?

    Today was weigh-in day for progress on my diet. I’m not feeling very svelte this morning, and it isn’t because of the wrecked hamstring in my left leg. There’s nothing to celebrate, that is unless I consider my health, and all that kind of good stuff often taken for granted. I’m back up about a pound. It must be Thursday night’s very reasonable portion of Chocolate Mousse–Banana Split Style which was so delicious I could have eaten all of it myself, but didn’t. Or pasta a couple of different ways over a couple of different days, or the pizza on Saturday when we were working like dogs, or the Eggs Baked in Cream yesterday morning…Whoa. Oh, and the wine. And the beer. Looks like I’ll have to pop that celery out of the veggie bin. Dinner needs to be on a smaller plate. And I probably don’t need sugar in my coffee.

    On the brighter side of things, a few weeks back, I received a very pleasant review of my blog which I believe I neglected to share. In his review, Billy Mac said, “New kid on the block Kellementology is on the path to stardom. She has all the right who…what…where…and whens in order, her format is set up nicely and she posts on a regular basis. What else can you ask for from a blogger.  Now it’s the waiting game to watch the blog blossom. Keep up the good work…keep the content as good a s it is…and good luck.”  I swear I blushed when I read it.

    Then,  Confessions of a Former Bookworm anointed me with a Thinking Bloggers Award, and in very good company, as well.  Perhaps it makes sense that I gave you all my pensive  thoughts above to consider  while I was thinking about it. Just sharing the thinking one post at a time, whomever, and where ever you are out there.

    It’s a pretty diverse list, but the following people give me pause in their various regions of the blog world, sometimes like a cold splash of water, or others like the brush of tall grass in a gentle breeze. I discovered Wonderland or Not fairly recently. I like her edgy, witty point of view and general voice in whatever she writes–even though I have to scratch my head occasionally, and stew over it. And Dave, of course, at Wandering the Ether, who never fails to make me feel guilty for writing about American Idol, or the RT’s messy bedroom instead of societal issues that are perpetually swept under the rug. Or like Writing Under a Pseudonym whose writing on life and its trials is hauntingly beautiful at times, and so achingly sad others, that I feel as if I’m an intruder as I read, and don’t know how she makes it from one day to the next. I don’t read these blogs the same way, for the same length of time, or for the same reasons. I respond to one, and hover around the other two. They simply make me think each time I check on each of them. They coerce me into a world more serious than the one I’ve wanted to be a part of recently and I appreciate that.

    So, in the spirit of thought, I’m off for my walk early today, to think. Free as a bird, listing to the left a bit, weighing more than I want, but ready to pound the streets in search of anything a bit less serious in Paradise. Because a bit of levity is good for the soul. Would you put this on your house? Really? Shhhhhh…..I’m thinking.