He was not reassured.

Sporting relationships (imagine that as a Jeopardy! category)

The currency of art (everything is beginning to look like possible Jeopardy! categories)

Words Jane Austen didn’t write (via Dustbury, who would excel as a Jeopardy! writer)

Shoes no one will ever actually wear (Dustbury again)

Had I not really wanted to go to S. Carolina in a few days to attend a beach wedding and get to see some of my favorite people, I might have suffered in silence for another week or so until this thing clears itself up. Well, not exactly in silence. Between the hacking cough, moans, groans, and complaints of why me, why now, and… well, suffering in silence is not my forte.

Speaking of silence… remember this sound? If you do, you are either an old (but connected) fart or you live in some totally boondocks area. Or you could be younger and remember this as a sort of lullaby because Momma was going online as soon as she could get you to bed!

Boondock is an interesting word. It’s derived from Tagalog bundok, meaning mountain and came into use in the U.S. after WWII. I’m thrilled to learn another Tagolog word that I can remember other than “utot“.  

Speaking of smelly — Glenn Beck really let one go when he said that evolution is being forced down our throats because he’s never seen a half-monkey, half person. A few of the more strident “lefty” sites have ridiculed him without really laying out why he is “not even wrong“. Elisheva Hannah Levin is explaining everything clearly in a series of posts. The first two are Glenn Beck’s Monkey Show: Overview and Glenn Beck’s Monkey Show: Not Even Wrong. Check Ragamuffin Studies for the third in the series.    

From not even wrong to just plain wrong… Amity Shlaes explains the rules of the game. Will politicians ever learn to play fair?

Heck, politicians have trouble playing in tune at all. They don’t know what the frequency is any more than did Dan Rather’s assailants.

Margaret Shepherd, artist, calligrapher, author

Being essentially uncivilized myself, is anyone surprised that I hadn’t heard of her before now? Writing thank you notes fills me with dread and anxiety. I can count the number of personal letters I’ve written in my life on one hand easily. Complaint letters are my forte, but I’ve stopped writing them too.

I have been on the receiving end of notes and letters that thrill me when I picked them out of the mailbox, so that makes my not returning that joy even more egregious. I’m a bit ashamed of myself right now. Blogging and short emails make up for this not one bit.

Margaret Shepherd’s Amazon Page. You can view more of her calligraphy art (bigger images) at Neatorama. I’m especially fond of what I think of as the “childbirth series” at the bottom of that page. I found this artist thanks to a civilized man who writes The Fire Ant Gazette.

No doubt the participants will “find fault in a disagreeable way and complain fretfully.”

Today I just want to complain.

My left shoulder hurts. There’s no reason it should hurt. It’s not like I’ve been engaged in any athletic activities that would promote this, unless you include sleeping as an athletic activity.

And… the tremor in both my hands has not lessened noticeably since I’ve been off Lexapro for five days. Nothing else has changed much either except that it’s been easier for me to *twist* my knees. I will be walking what I think is straight, when suddenly one of my knees will decide it wants to go left or right. This is sudden, excruciatingly painful for a moment and sore for an hour or so.

But, back to the tremor. It’s been diagnosed as an “essential” tremor, which means that essentially the cause is unknown. Discontinuing the Lexapro was my own idea… and it’s part of my idea of discontinuing all medications that do not have a proven effect. I’m staying on my blood pressure medicine and on Singulair. I’ve tried going off Singulair before, but I disliked waking up with my eyes swollen shut.

I’m also not liking what is a recent (within the past year) sensitivity to noise. I react to a slamming door almost as if it were a gun discharging.

But most of all, I’m tired of pain. Sitting, standing, prone in bed… there is not position that most of my body is not in pain of varying intensity. The worst is in my neck, shoulders, and upper back. Even when I’ve had surgery on lower parts of my body, the pain relievers given didn’t ease the aches in these areas.

Whether there is a diagnosis or not… the pain is here and nothing (not even opiods) helps long-term. I’ll live with it.

But… this tremor thing. That bothers me. It’s been bad enough a few times that I can’t type. I thought I was hiding this symptom (of whatever) quite well until relatives asked me… why is your hand shaking like that. Frankly, I hid this from myself so well, I wondered why they asked. I would reply “What shaking?”

The fact that I can put aside this pain to do what I must do… or what I truly want to do (hold a newborn grandchild in my arms without moving for an hour) leads me to think this pain is all in my brain.

Yet my brain is not that weak. When I push myself to a level of physical activity that my body does not like, it punishes me for a day or two with extra pain. When I will myself and muscles to hold my grandchildren, my body seems to find a few extra natural pain relievers.

Please remember that I’m complaining here…  Complaints are not necessarily meant to be alleviated, merely acknowledged. And, as far as cradling my infant grandchildren in my arms, no amount of muscle pain could possibly overwhelm the joy. In fact, there’s something emanating from the infant that mitigates whatever pain might be there… perhaps if we could bottle the joy, comfort, exhilaration, and awe that pours off a cuddled and happy infant we’d solve all the world’s problems.

All I ask is acknowledgement of the pain. I really don’t want sympathy. But I don’t want to be judged as wimpy or lazy when I must rest for a while.

And thus ends this complaint.

unidentified, first-time shooter trying out various handguns

UPDATE: What does mulch do?

• Retains water
• Inhibits weed growth
• Moderates temperature
• Prevents erosion

One would think I’d at least be capable of generating the astonishing stupidity myself. Alas, I’m not even that talented.

Again, dear brother, did the same thing happen with The True Believer?

The last I remember seeing of The Scotch-Irish: A Social History and How the Scots Invented the Modern World is when a daughter or two and a son-in-law or two were looking them over. I’ve since searched both daughter’s bookcases and not found my books. I’m at a loss here. I can’t help but wonder if they left them in their uncle’s care.

How is it that Born Fighting, a book I’m not as likely to re-read is still safely on my shelf?

Now I’m not really complaining too much here. My daughters and my brother have provided me with lots of reading material. It’s just that I can’t understand why books I refer to often disappear. Maybe there’s a bookmouse in my house.