Reflection: Soundbite

I have been doing poetry (and occasional prose) pieces on this BlogTalk radio show for a while... live since January. I will include a piece here. I have been listening to shows tonight and cringing a bit. There was one show where there was no co-host and I talked quite a bit... except that I giggled more than I talked. Sentence. Giggle. Sentence. Giggle. That was hard to listen to. "Shut up, Karen, and read!" I was thinking.

I went back in the archives a while for this:

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In Between: If You're Human, I Apologize

I do need to get another phone. It's happened occasionally forever (colloquially) but it's been worse for a while. It used to be that sometimes, especially if the phone had been off the hook at some previous point, that I'd pick up a ringing phone... and it would keep ringing. Jiggling the cord -- pushing it in further -- would get it going, and I'd take the call. But now... Someone called several times in a short span of time. I don't think they were an automated subfinder because there were no jobs posted when I logged on to the online version. If you're human, I actually didn't mean to do that that time. It did make me anxious, those several attempts.

PS I have a different one lugged in now.

In-Between: Moving (One Floor)

In an attempt , to fund my med tests (and life in general) it's down one floor and a station in life, in a manner of speaking -- though it's nicer in a way, my new studio-room.

I had witty things to say, but my mind is so very tired. When the dust settles (literally!) I'll still have the same number.

Reflection: Flower Phone

A poem by Robert Frost ironically (for me) titled "The Phone". Ah, but here the phone is not a phone but a flower who seems to convey tidings from a loved one.

I recorded this a while ago, and there it sat in my drafts. I don't think I've posted it yet on my public domain poetry site, where I've been posting pretty much a public domain poem a day -- no, not a pace I'm going to keep up forever, but good for getting the site off the ground. It's doing the "Professional Squid" blogging challenge... 30 posts in 30 days.

(I know...Professional Squids!?)

Audio Reflection: Keepsake Mill

My folks couldn't have envisioned this when they took that picture years ago: By gummit, that old photo is talking! Actually, it's reciting "Keepsake Mill" -- a poem that (though you wouldn't guess from its somber tones) actually comes from a volume of classic children's poems; it's one of a couple poems where the author, Robert Louis Stevenson, steps out of his 'child's garden' and speaks from across a span of a great many years.

It's a pragmatic thing in a way, finding more ways to put up audio online. I can put up another site/ domain with my InMotion hosting, and I hope to have Audio Reflections up within a few weeks. The site can give some support to other things I have on the web, so it's a practical move as well as a pet project. You know I'll maintain it! (I can get too exhausted to write, but I seldom get too exhausted to read aloud.)

This particular poem is also for people in my life, and those I miss. Speaking of which... The phone just rang, and I didn't answer it. Oh, bad me! Of course I'm not avoiding anyone -- just news of them. (How very... me.) Got to ease myself back into gear: Breathe in, breathe out, center...

But here's a poem, a slightly abridged version as I needed to get the piece down to sixty seconds (without going at too ridiculous a pace).

Reflection: Scrub Scrubbing Away...

In one of my first attempts at magazine publishing (my brother and I had a magazine company that summer and gave our parents a subscription) I gave my mother and father step by step instructions about how properly to clean house. I know, I know... It seems a likely story.

Flash forward to the present: After 5 hours this weekend of cleaning -- appliances, walls, floor, windows -- does my studio apartment sparkle? Heavens, no! When it comes to the insides of cabinets and drawers, the clutter will make it quite a job -- I can't actually scrub 'til I can 'see ground'. At some point, I may need to bite the bullet and actually sort things. (I am much less fond of filing, sorting, and trashing than of scrubbing.) Of course, when it comes to the inside of stove and such the scrubbing itself is quite a job -- and I need to replenish my supply of abrasive sponges. Off I go again...

To what does the apartment owe this flurry of cleaning? Truth is, I think I'm going to need to move somewhere cheaper. The cost of some medical tests? Well, in an extended season of difficult times, that's the last straw in some ways. If those tests are so very important to me... well, looks like it will take some sacrifices elsewhere.

I still have my 'bad news shield' up as I rush about, busy-busy, trying to accomplish things and to put up some insurance again the dry season. I do need, very soon, to lower the shield a wee bit and let in a bit more of the world, and those people I love. Ah, now they're the ones that can make me fragile -- and sloppier and less accomplished. (They're worth it, though.)

Reflection: Up a Down Staircase

I checked my mailbox today -- some of it. (I do recognize of course that many people complete this activity on a regular basis and don't feel the need to brag about it online, but 'check mail' is one of the main activities rendered difficult by my bad news phobias.)

I've been arguably on something of a roll the past few hours: Not wanting to live life as a fugitive I went to King County Library to pay some library fines. When the lady behind the counter looked up my account, she was really staring for a moment. No, it wasn't because of the size of my fine (not that bad actually) and no, the matter had not been transfered to any other agency (neither collections, nor the FBI, nor the mafia...) No, she was staring because... well let's just say there's a limit to how long they hold onto things there, but if I'd gone in sooner, I would have left with a picture ID.

While the activities of the past few hours have been arguably exemplary, they do, I realize hint at pockets of dysfunction. I also want to say (and this is important) that I do feel uneasy about some missed calls. I try to make myself frequently reachable through at least one communication mode. I may need to get a new phone. When it's been off the hook (and sometimes I do knock it off accidentally) I tend to lose the next call. There are times when I jiggle all the ports and cords and still don't get connected -- it's happened too frequently in the recent past.

In-between Reflection: The Phone

I don't do it on purpose. Sometimes the phone doesn't work right, and I can't hear anyone on the other end. These incidents seem more likely to happen soon after the phone has been off the hook for a while. I'll wiggle at the ports, and I may end up connecting or I may not, but usually I won't hang up unless there's a hang up on the other end. Today I did. They were on for so very long. I kept saying, "This isn't working right... Hey you can all back." I replaced the phone on the receiver and an uneasy feeling came over me, born perhaps of dreams. I didn't do that on purpose, you know.

Reflection: Phantoms Who Ring in the Night

Usually I take the phone off the hook when I'm online tutoring -- there's more than one reason for that, as people who know me know well. But there I was talking to a student in Beijing... and with the phone ringing in a way that was hard to ignore. It was a little after 8:00 -- prime time for sub-finding machines. That's who it most likely is, I told myself, a machine. It's no news from loved ones, nothing that could faze me emotionally; I'll pick it up -- easy peazy -- then I'll hang up on it, and resume tutoring.

"I usually take it off the hook," I was saying to my student as I lifted the phone. "Hello," I said into the receiver. No machine was there to greet me. I spoke again; I spoke several times before I heard the faint click that told me I was no longer connected.

I resumed work with the phone off the hook and my mind on the phantom caller -- on people who go ring in the night, then aren't there. Was someone fazed by my words to my student, deliberately unwilling to intrude on my session with so much as a voice? There were questions in my mind as I drifted off to sleep quite a few hours later, with the phone back on the hook, and two diphenhydramine in my system (a higher dose than I've been taking of late). I felt better when the drowsiness wore off (today early afternoon). The phone's been reassuringly quiet. It was probably not a crisis or calamity that prompted someone to call, but then slip away without a word of greeting.

I communicate with people on a daily basis from all over the world; I experience little if any anxiety because I don't love those people or fear losing them. That seems so logical to me -- it's hard to imagine experiencing fear in connection with a person unless one is fearful of losing the person -- yet it's brought home to me again and again that that's a perspective that's not shared by a lot of people. Now then, whatever the LinkWithin widget picks as 'related posts, I give also: Plase Don't Email the Drops.