I Am This Woman

(33 of 50)

No, I did not get pretty pasties (the boobie kind, not the tasty meat pie kind). I got no pasties (of either kind, actually). But the mammo was uneventful in a posh, country club kind of way. Whatever big money the Perot Family have dumped into that hospital, I must say that some of it was directed by the matriarch because the mammogram/breast center was gorgeous. Designer carpeting, chair and walls, aqua t-shirt type robes that were almost cute in a kimono style and the latest digital technology. Very non-hospitally. The magazines? from May and June 2008!

My tech was South African so we chatted about how to be safe in Johannesburg (we are going there next month), and …. HER HANDS WERE NOT COLD. The gaspy ouchy part lasted about six seconds.

It was all quite lovely and forgettable. Go get your mammogram, ladies.

(32 of 50)

Four days before my 50th birthday, I am getting a mammogram. It is my second. Yes, I know that I should have started at 45 and gotten yearly ones. But I am a slow adopter, and I confess to having a modicum of anxiety about the whole “breast sandwich” thing.

But then I had my first one. And IT WAS NO BIG DEAL. I think that we need to stop catastrophizing these routine procedures, which in many cases, SAVE LIVES. (More later on the colonoscopy.)

I am going to a new clinic today, but last time this was the drill: wait in waiting room (aptly named) for a bit, ignore all the people who are getting more dire diagnostic exams/tests, read Reader’s Digest from 1999 (an article about Y2K). When name is murmured barely above the din by laconic technician in candy pink scrubs, sound like an old fart and say, “WHAT? Did you call me?”

Get instructions for the fifteenth time about undressing from the waist up. “TAKE OFF EVERYTHING. Did you wear deodorant?” Um, no because 75 people in your office told me not to. One woman made a special phone call to impart this wisdom. Regardless of the fact that I don’t *wear* any products with aluminum in them, and have a very simple system of bra-and-shirt, I suppose they get really tired of having to specify to people that they need to remove their nipple piercings.

The clinic I went to has a special little waiting area for the topless-but-gowned ones. The magazines are only a month old. I read People and probably discovered that some former TV star had died and I hadn’t heard about it.

When you get called into The Room, the Express-Lane Effect starts. By this principle – that whenever I get into an Express Lane, it backs up because the machine is down, or there is a price check required – I will get the technician with the coldest hands.

And the most fun is the little tape pasties they put on you (cool! they come in floral now!). “No, I need to place them.” The tech scrutinizes your boobs, selecting just the exact center of your nipple for reference.

Then the breast sandwich is done, with two plates (which are cold, no surprise there) that come down to “gently” mash your breast tissue as flat as possible so the x-ray gives as accurate a picture as possible. Yes, it hurts but it lasts for about 20 seconds. The tech says, “Hold your breath!” to which I gasp, “No problem!”

Repeat that three more times. There are two views taken – one vertical, one horizontal, two boobs. So, 80 seconds of unpleasantness, some cool, high-tech pasties and the off-chance to detect breast cancer early while it’s treatable.

Not bad.

(31 of 50)

My son has been alternatively-schooled and unschooled 11 years, and in public school for not quite one year. He was in a non-traditional daycare and kindergarten (Waldorf-inspired and Waldorf-proper) for the first six years, then in a charter school for five years that emphasized community responsibility, consensus building, theme-driven multi-year curriculum and individual responsibility.

The one lead teacher he had for the last three years of the charter school was, as it turned out, NOT a good fit for him in that last year, though I didn’t see it at the time (so much other stuff going on). I know better now. My son is what he is, and needs the kind of learning environment that he needs, and a teacher who does not make reasonable accommodations IN A SMALL CHARTER SCHOOL is a bad thing.

We unschooled for six months, exploring together what he wanted to learn, but mostly decompressing from that bad teacher. Last October, I enrolled him in a public school in a move that startled me but seemed to be the right thing at the time. The decision was twofold: as his main educator, I was failing him. I couldn’t find the right combination of approach, topic, method or structure that suited him (including NONE), motivated him. Some dedicated home educators said that I didn’t give him enough time. But the need for change was immediate. And thus as his parent also, I was failing him.

However, when I thought about more and more and more structure, I realized that I did NOT want to replicate school at home. I had a job to attend to, and as flexible as working from home is, it does require one to actually work. The much-ballyhooed “working alongside each other” was not working for us, and having me as the teacher and parent was confusing and stressful for the lad.

Unschooling was not working (at least not fast enough for my son’s well-being); I did not want to do “school-at-home” (even brief attempts at workbooks and lesson plans were met with tears and anxiety). So, why not share the responsibility with others to be the teachers? Oh, hey, there is a system for that. It’s called “school.”

I wanted to see how he would respond in addition to seeing how he would do when pitted against the mainstream school of thought, standardized testing and all that rot. Sixth grade was an ideal place for that to happen because, in reality, sixth grade is pivotal developmentally but not academically. It was a great learning lab for all sorts of reasons. If it didn’t work out, then we could also go back to Plan A, or move on to Plan C, D, E, F…

Sixth grade worked out just fine. Not great, not awful. Just fine. As it should be. He got the full experience of social mores (public school really is a funny sort of island tribe!), teacher nonsense and teacher wonderfulness (esp. librarian wonderfulness!). He learned cool stuff in math and science, and has emerged as bright and skilled in most subjects (completely “meh” in mainstream art-teacher art). He has learned the game of homework completion and the consequences of not doing it and not caring about it. And because of the ungraded foundation he had in the non-traditional schools, he is not a little trick monkey working for The Grades. The numbers on his papers were like weather reports to him, and me, and we dressed and reacted accordingly.

And now we are moving on to seventh grade, and I’m going to take the same attitude: it will be a learning lab. We’ll see what works, and what doesn’t, and if it doesn’t work on a catastrophic level, then we have Plan C, D, E …

So anyone who says, “oh, I can’t imagine homeschooling,” “homeschooling is too hard,” “I bet you got sick of it” or “kids need to socialize with other kids” will get a polite smile from me. Ditto the folks (much more rarely) who say, “public school is evil,” “I would never do that to my child,” or “You’re caught up in the establishment, man!” They really have no clue what we were and are doing, and I don’t have time to fill them in. Join us in the journey and conversation, see all the shades and colors of learning, be a supporter and a partner. But heckling, however well-meaning, will be ignored.

(30 of 50)

First of all, unless I do three entries a day, I am not going to get to 50 by next Sunday, which IS MAH BIRFDAY!!!! yay! yay! I’m not mad enough to try that, or think that it would be worth reading. But I may continue with daily entries until I indeed do have 50.

Secondly, I haven’t exactly been delving into the Deep Stuff. This birthday so far hasn’t seemed to be as momentous as 40 was. 30 was pleasant and rather sad. I was desperately unhappy at 30, and the day was made worse by an unwelcome celebration at work, if I remember correctly. In fact, it is rather funny (both in a ha-ha way and in a peculiar way) that other people assign so much meaning to one’s birthday even when you don’t. 50 is a number. When you are not yet fifty, it seems impossibly OLD. But days from 50, I feel like I’m truly in the middle of something. Not old. In the middle. Busy. Occupied. Booked up.

My creativity has been dampened this week. I’ve felt it sort of lying there in a wet little puddle in the corner, occasionally whimpering and sighing, “Oh please, let’s do something with paint. Or fabric. Yes, with fabric.” And then it slumps down again, just wistful and Edwardian and all want and no have.

I know that by directing some energy over toward that corner, that things will start to flow again. I know that ideas and experiments will be there when I am ready. During our recent trip to see the Prince Caspian movie in the Narnia Chronicles, I found myself drifting off the storyline (some would argue, “what storyline?”) and noticing the clothes. I wanted to remember how the clothes were constructed so I could make myself some cool period clothes, and my son a puffy shirt that looks very masculine and royal. I also have decided to make a mask like the helmets that the Telmarines wore (think Spaniard conquistadors).

The flow is there, when I want to release it. For writing, it’s much much easier, both because the medium is so simple (word processor, blog, keyboard - just start putting words down) and because it’s my preferred and oldest practice. But I also know that when I open some Sculpey, sit down with scissors and cloth, or pick up knitting, the same process is there. With some variations, but it’s there for me when I seek it. That’s one very very nice thing about 50. My creative process is a known quantity, an ever-evolving entity that I’m smack in the middle of.

For you, gentle reader, think today of ebb and flow. How would you map your process? Start in the middle with a work in progress. If you unravel time, where was the inspiration for that item? where were the ebbs and where is the flow? Did you find a flow, or was there something in the way?

It’s Sunday, and for me, I hope it rains because that will be loads of quiet “boring” time inside with books, fabric, yarn and ideas. (The border collie disagrees with me. She must go RUN!)

(29 of 50)

Call me “Four Eyes.” Actually, I have bifocals, so that would be “Six Eyes.”

One part of aging is the inevitable need for glasses. This started for me in my mid-30s when I was in graduate school and reading a lot. But I didn’t believe it. I look back and see the truth now. However, at the time, I thought it was just overuse (which it probably ALSO was). Lots of reading in grad school and not all of it can be done at optimum ergonomics.

Finally, around 42, I succumbed to getting some “cheaters” as they are called, and it rocked my world. Read the rest of this entry »

(28 of 50)
Forgive me for just a moment, for not being fluffy, funny or pointless. This is a particularly important day for me, historically, as an American and as an Air Force brat.

Today is June 6. On a pretty day in summer, 64 years ago, a whole lot of men, young and old, landed in France for an invasion that turned the tide and eventually ended WWII. In the following months, American, British, French, Canadian, German, Italian, Spanish, etc. men and women died. Some survived and told us their stories, lest we forget.

However you feel about war, one cannot forget those hoardes of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who were cut down, some even before they were on dry land. Some of them were fathers and have children and grandchildren who remember. Some were childless, some married, some unmarried. There are some men who died, whose loved ones are now also dead 64 years later. They have no one to remember them.

But I remember. I was raised to honor their service and sacrifice, and to support the men and women and families serving in the military currently, regardless of my political and emotional feelings. My parents never missed any news coverage or speeches about this day. They watched with quiet tears in their eyes. They had lost friends, classmates, colleagues, neighbors; nearly everyone in their generation knew someone who had died there. They knew the magnitude of the day and taught us kids its importance. I remember. My brother remembers.

Remember them. Thank them. But really, just remember them.

(27 of 50) (not to be confused with Greta Thragnusdottir’s magnum opus - a much later but fragmented text which is considered to be the first Icelandic historical romance)

I suppose it is time to begin the story about how I discovered these Icelandic texts. I had always meant to reveal them in appropriate academic channels, but since I am no longer an academic, I can perhaps allow myself a little leeway. The problem is, however, the only other person in the Universe who ever expressed any interest in these important works was my father, and he has now passed on. In fact, if you look at the Moultrie (Georgia) High School Library check-out card for 1935-36, you will see only his signature (and one overdue fine).

Thragnussen was lesser known. Ok, he was unknown until his eddas were discovered in the 19th C. by a sheepherder, and documented by a fellow from the British Museum who had traveled to Iceland for the hákari, which he believed to be a cure for toe fungus.

(I’m sorry. I’ve run out of time tonight to finish this truly fascinating and little known story from literary history. More soon.)

Memorial Day Weekend, originally uploaded by tigerwillow.

(26 of 50)
Some days, you have to work. Some days, you need to play with Sculpey. And sometimes you just have to ride the rollercoaster.

(25 of 50)

June is my favorite month of all. Not just because my birthday is in the middle of the month, but because it’s usually the beginning of summer holiday, it’s warm and sunny (or stormy) but never cold. Rarely is it cold. (I know it’s cold int he mountains and elsewhere in June, even snowy at elevation, but that’s not where I live.) I do NOT like cold, esp. not in June.

June tastes like fresh peach ice cream. Like key lime pie. Like hot dogs with relish and mustard.

June smells like green lawns, sweat and sunscreen. June sounds like the South, bugs buzzing, birds and squirrels chittering.

June has soft, short nights with quiet clouds blowing around the sky while the moon peeks down.

For me, June is all too short but oh so sweet.

(24 of 50)

It’s been a week on the new system for sp*m removal, and it seems to be working. I have missed several days of blogging, but then again, one strives for quality not quantity, right?

Although, I am reminded of something a very good friend says (and maybe he’s quoting someone?): “There’s a certain quality to quantity.”

New developments:

• I rode a rollercoaster! Look for actual photo evidence soon!

• Graceful Crow Media has acquired a digital audio recorder with a very easy interface for transferring files into the computer. Expect plenty of nonsense audio soon.
• Yardwork is nearly complete. I will take one more set of interim photos, then the plants go in tomorrow. After that, I hope to have some nice pix with loads of “curb appeal.”
• I had pancakes/syrup for breakfast - a break from my usual high-protein yoghurt, fish or chicken, or chaste bowl of cereal. And I think the pancake coma is about to do me in, complete with catnap and really horrible dream about a friend who rejected me years ago. In the dream, she returned and silently gave me back some knitting I’d done for her. Knife to the heart. Made the pain of losing her friendship fresh again.
• Stupid dreams.
• I’ve received EIGHT (8) CARDS already! SQUEEEEEEEE!