Musical Cheeses

The soap scent on my hands hints of chicken nuggets, and as I am huddled close to the laptop keyboard and lacking supper, this is giving my digestive organs undue cause for complaint. Of course, I could always raid the kitchen and find something decent to eat, but as exasperation has finally caught up with my brain's failed attempts to solve the world's problems, I am starving my grey cells in revenge. Unfortunately, my stomach does not care for this method of retaliation; however, it will have to deal with it. Putting something in my mouth right now would bring on vomiting.

Intending to retire early and sermon myself to sleep, a la Revelation-style, I found that this inconvenient body had other ideas, which is why, three hours later, I am curled up on the floor in the chilly back office, alone in the dark as I rattle away at this blog entry. Ellie Goulding's "Anything Could Happen" is playing in my ear buds (I keep putting it on repeat), and I find it far too addicting. While most of her music is hardly decent, there is now a total of four songs that I could keep on a revolving playlist all day depending on my mood, and this is one of them. The others would be "Human" (the harmony hooked me immediately, and after that the lyrics: "I am so scared of what will kill me in the end, for I am not prepared."), "Dead In the Water" (Mouse AU all the way), and "Your Biggest Mistake" ("But you let go 'cause your hope is gone... It's a shame you don't know what you're running from; would your bones have to break and your lights turn off? ... You tread water, fighting for the air in your lungs. Move closer, maybe you can right all your wrongs.").

Earlier in the day I also pulled up "Missing", by Evanescence. The song itself didn't appeal to me at first, but it happened to be one of those that, once I had heard it, such an impression was left so as to make forgetting it impossible. Now, it seems cruelly fitting.

Please, please forgive me
But I won't be home again.
Maybe someday you'll look up
and, barely conscious, you'll say to no one,
"Isn't something missing?"

You won't cry for my absence, I know;
You forgot me long ago.
Am I that unimportant,
Am I so insignificant?

Isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing?

[...]

Please, please forgive me,
But I won't be home again.
I know what you do to yourself;
I breathe deep and cry out...
Isn't something missing,
Isn't someone missing me?

And if I bleed
I'll bleed
Knowing you don't care
If I sleep
Just to dream of you
I'll wake without you there.

[...]

Isn't something missing?
Isn't someone missing me?


Of course, not all of the music in my playlists holds to such a sober pattern. This morning Ariel popped her head into my room and asked if I could babysit Arava for a few hours while they moved the rest of their stuff from the cabin; having nothing pressing, I dragged myself up and carried the tot off for an afternoon of adventures. Carol's Pandora station was set for folk music, and while it was low enough so as to not be obnoxious, it was, in a way, irritatingly depressing, not to mention sleep-inducing (and, lest there be any ignorance regarding this fact, one does not relax one's guard when maintaining possession of a toddler incapable of staying in five square feet for more than four seconds). So straightaway I paused Pandora and called upon Coco-kun to aid me, pulling up Carmelldansen and Kurutto Mawatte Ikkaiten, and to those songs we somersaulted, rolled, and dived all over the living room. (Needless to say, I had removed the candlesticks, rocking chair, and Joan of Arc beforehand; Arava still managed to attack the iPhone and send the stereo speakers flying off the stand, a catastrophe which I speedily concealed to the best of my ability.)

A great part of the afternoon involved romping with a large, oblong exercise ball, blue and full of possibility for great imaginations. For a while we took turns running and belly diving over it to go rolling across the room (I mustered enough determination to actually indulge in rambunctious play for once, dizziness and all), and once Arava wearied of that we settled for a prolonged game of peek-a-boo, which also involved standing the ball on end and chasing her around it in order to eat her feet.

Surprisingly enough, she exhausted before I did, and we retired to the sofa with Coco-kun in order to scour YouTube for Elmo. The child adores all things Elmo, and she sat at rapt attention for a few thirteen minute episodes, cuddling against me with a pillow at her feet and her gaze glued to the screen. Presently I fetched her some medium cheddar cheese from the kitchen, and we nibbled cheese in companionable Elmo-silence, enjoying both the educational exploits of the toddler-Chaplin Mr. Noodle and the delightful flavour of our respective cheese slices.

As it happens, I shall miss her when she is gone; over the course of a month, twains, eggies, cheese, and wagons, we have become fast friends. Hey, we've even bonded over Sesame Street.

Clippings from the Edge of a Day

Rain drips from eave to earth just outside the double glass doors, offsetting the sense of exposed insecurity caused by the clear panes (as there is something of the animal in me, the instinct of concealment remains strong). Though all my screen-dazzled eyes can see now is the glow of my laptop, I know the trees are outside the house, close-grown and tall, looming high over this small property. When I was small I would think of the trees and feel safe; now, that sense of security is long gone.

Ibuprofen leaves a metallic taste in my mouth, and my feet are cold.

~ ~ ~

The steps of Bonamana are clumsy when I try them. I stand in front of the mirror and snap my fingers out towards my knee, pleased at the definitive click; however, the clarity of the other moves are lost to my awkward shuffling. I memorize the first three seconds, pausing the video numerous times to repeat the sequence on my own, then minimize the video and sway to the beat of the music, abandoning the dance for a more primitive mode of movement.

~ ~ ~

I spend most of the day curled up on the mattress in the room I share with Aigul, moving between SCC and Paul Currie, who is traipsing through downtown Lancaster in search of a specific coffee shop. Before settling on the location of his hangout, I located all shops and tea rooms in the city, then explored their interiors via business photos and menus, not to mention customer reviews. Transporting the information into the scene itself is no trouble at all, and weaving facts into story gives me a thrill of pleasure, as does discovering Paul's passion for tea. He and Lynne will get along famously once they meet.

Aubrey I took into SCC for the first time, as a fifteen year old boy (I didn't dare bring him in a middle-aged man), and was delighted to realize just how much of a darling he really is. Really. Like a pinch of Danny's good temper thrown in with a dash of Derek's stability, and the rest of him is his own man; he is going to be so much fun to write when I get around to tackling that novel. (And I will, even though second drafts are intimidating when your quondam self trashed the story and characters on the first go-round. Especially when your characters know it and are refusing to talk to you as a result.)

~ ~ ~

Words must wait for another day, because I must abandon typing and crawl into bed so Jama can sleep. Besides, okaa-san, I am so tired, and my eyes ache. Ai wo.

Apprenticeship, Take Two

Marathoning Patrick Jane over the past couple of weeks has once again established my interest in developing acuity of memory. While I have no exceptional mental capacity, and indubitably have diminished my ability to store and process information by maintaining a continual state of exhaustion, not to mention the copious indulgence in caffeine and the playing of near to a thousand games of Solitaire, I firmly believe that I can at least reclaim a brain that funtions at average speeds and possesses a firm grasp of logic. Hence, the trading of Solitaire for Mahjong (with the stipulation that I cannot move from a game until I have won it or know exactly why I can't win it), rememorization of number strings related to work, and, for the first time, employment of a memory palace.

My father tried to teach the skill to us years ago, but, being young and lacking in interest, I did little to explore the concept. After dismissing it more recently as too complicated for my flabby grey cells, I finally picked it up in an attempt to circumvent my faulty recall and master the layout of the birth and resuscitation trays.

Logically, I settled on a place associated with Carol's practice -- her first floor bathroom, which I had entered repeatedly over the past two weeks and realized, upon some deliberate review, that I knew the basic design and furnishing of the room. The memorization itself went as follows, starting with the birth tray.

I step through the bathroom door and see the sink; there in the bowl is the chux pad to lay on the cookie sheet. The faucet is the birth set, while one handle is the catheter and the other handle the amnihook. To the right of the sink bowl lies the sterile gloves and the packets of sterile gauzes; to the left, on the basket of soaps and washcloths, stands the roll of paper towels. The pediatric stethoscope is draped over the ceramic vase in the left rear corner; flashlight and olive oil stand where the soap and hand lotion would ordinarily be. The mirror holds the bag of gloves.

Turning to the toilet, I observe the resuscitation tray -- towel draped in the bowl of the potty, ambubag on the seat, pulse oximeter on the lid. The bulb syringe is the handle, and the delee dangles with the toilet paper.

Despite the irony of the water closet, or perhaps because of it, the strategy works. I admit to some doubt in the extent of its effectiveness, at least in my awkward hands, but confidence lies in the direction of accomplishment and I intend to continue employing the strategy whenever opportunity arises. A toast to sharpened minds!