Wait a minute, wait for it...

I have a slight procrastination problem.

Give me a postmark deadline to complete rebate paperwork, and I'm frantically scrabbling together all of the necesary receipts, bar codes and signatures needed the night before. Hell, it's a good thing if I can find the receipts, first of all (my organizational woes are another issue).
Set me up with a kitchen full of fruits and other expirables for a week's worth of yummy meals, I'm scraping the mold off my tomatoes or slathering peanut butter over my bread to "moisten" it and fool my tastebuds two weeks later.

I've always been like this. As a youngster, during piano lessons, I'd wait until Monday night to start practicing the pieces due for my Thursday lesson; field trip today? "Ahh! Sign here, dot there Mom, hurry, herecomesthebus! See you after we get back!"

I guess this is why journalism never really freaked me out, with its deadlines and all. I'm pretty good at getting shit done at the last minute, head butting against reality all the way. But sometimes there are things that are out of my control, and as used to having things mostly go my way as I am, this means a big upset in my world when it doesn't happen the way it's supposed to.

Like today.
Never mind that I lost my passport last year because I had put off getting a new ID after losing my old one (organization what?), or that I thought about getting a new passport months ago.. I finally decided to make that happen today, when a spectacular trip now hangs in the balance (the balance being a mere five weeks). And never mind that I'd been thinking about checking on the travel credits I had with Delta in October to make sure they expired in March and not sooner..

Do I even need to say it? Should I wait any longer, or is it clear?
The airline credits expired earlier in the month. The passport "office" at the Post office closes at 4 pm, you need cash, and the price is going up tomorrow. I nI was there at 3 pm., but I never carry cash, I had an hour to find it, and with the blizzard going on outside, I was too far from a bank to get it done.

So the lesson here is a hard one, the kind I lean best. I'll be paying more for a passport than I could have, when I go get it done. I'll be paying more for a flight than I needed to, when I finally book it. I'll have these reminders to prompt me into action next time something needs doing. But for now, I'm at home, in out of the snow, and warm, temper tantrum avoided (although I snarled at every smiling person on Michigan Ave. on my way home).
I'd still like to pitch a fit abou the plane tickets, when I think about it, but eh. Why?
There's always tomorrow.

Running for my life

I do it because I can. I do it because each step is my own, and at one time I wasn't sure I'd ever been in control of something so natural ever again. I run because much like the reason I write, there is something in me, something that needs out something that gets out, fast and hard, with each jarring, pounding step.
I run because when I was in the hospital, the doctors and nurses and concerned parents and therapists wouldn't let me, wouldn't let me so much as shuffle down the quiet hallway by myself.

I watch the seconds round into minutes, and I find another reason for running. It is here, on the treadmill, or out on the sidewalk, the trail by the lake or through the park, that time moves slower for me. Each step, at first, during the warm up, is taken slowly and deliberately, without the urgency I apply to my life. As the slow rubber tread whizzes by and hums with the motor inside, it is a step in time and nothing more. It's not like that for me at any other time during the day.
See, when you almost die at 22, everything afterwards--everything--must be more deliberate (even if it is spontaneous). Actions must be recognized and appreciated because you never know when they will be the last of their kind. Time moves faster for me than is does for you. No, no, you say, science and physics... I know. Sure I do. But its inexplicable, this time warp thing. It might be the crazy pinging and flashing of my brain gone awry, but my world simply moves faster than yours.
But when I run, it all seems to slow down.

I squish up on the green arrow, feel the mechanized button below my finder dip into the electrical board to set off the chain reaction that increases the speed. Below me, I feel the metal (plastic? who knows) board supporting me give ever so slightly under my foot an the whirring black tread. Even when the speed increases and the blood rushed quicker, hotter, faster inside my straining legs, time is slowed for me and I'm lost in the movement of the run and taken out of my body and my world.

I run from myself not because I'm afraid of death--when I'm gone, I'll be gone, poof-- but because I'm afraid of one day not being myself, totally and completely. I'm afraid that I won't be able to run, to think the thoughts I think while doing it, won't be able to lose myself in a run because I'll already have lost it all anyway.

Seven is a good place for the squishing arrow to stop at, and as I increase another arrow to five and feel the incline's burn in my calves, I'm fighting and pushing and huffing to keep up with the course. After a half hour, I'd just like to sit down and call it a day. But this thirty minute struggle is nothing, just one machine fighting another. And that too, is why I run. Fighting myself, grinding against my own faulty machinery reminds me that I am alive and able to do it, normal in my own way.

Eventually, because my leg is numb and not to be trusted after the two miles at this clip, I slow down, ease the mobile track down to a walking speed, imagining myself zooming off the treads backwards--splat! a cartoon caricature of eyes and mash on the wall behind me.

That's ok though, I was getting tired anyway, and nothing compares to a good stretch and recovery after a long hard run.

The middle way

"I'm going to teach in Japan or Korea or something next year."

The comment came as a surprise in the shuttered light of the early morning, but then again, nothing was a surprise in this relationship.

"Asia? So... we should break up. I know you have a thing for the Asian girls." I'd been thinking of ending things anyway-- what timing.

What? Big steely blue eyes open wide in surprise.

"No, I..."

"No, really, we should. Go do your thing, live the life you want, without a girlfriend at home. I'd hate for you to have to think about me when you have the opportunity of a lifetime a world away. It's fine."

And that was that. But the conversation from earlier remained open. We'd been talking about doing some traveling together, taking some fabulous trip to South America or Indonesia or some exotic place far removed from the drabness of South Dakota and the misery of our lives there.

"So, if you're over there already, lets go travel when you're done. I'll meet you in Thailand, we'll see the country, then I'll go to Cambodia. It'll be fun?" I wasn't sure if I could still ask this question, pick my own cards and then play them too.

"Really? Really? You want to do that? Yeah, that sounds awesome, dude! Yeah!"

Ok, "dude"- the official term of affection still applied. I was still cool. Good.

The conversation we'd been having for weeks remained open, and if all went well over the next few years, I'd have a friend to traipse around Thailand with. Would this "middle way" of having a friendship with a past lover maintain, or get too weird? I knew the friendship would be fine, as I stay friends with most ex's, but this might be different, especially if we thought we'd still travel together at some point. And to a place as lush and diverse as Thailand.

That conversation has remained open, and as my ex and I have gone off from South Dakota to do our own things-- he in Korea, me in Chicago-- we've managed to maintain a long-distance friendship that's been the best sort of relationship for us at this time in our lives.

"Chicago's going to be so good for you, there's options there and room for you. Here, it's... stupid," he had said to me, the last time we talked before I moved. "You're going to love it."

And I have. Probably more than he loves Korea, but likewise, that's been good for him, the right place at the right time to make him grow up and do things on his own. Change is good.

But now, what began three ( or was it only two?) years ago, is finally coming to fruition in the form of that oft-dreamed of trip to Thailand. Change hasn't happened there; I haven't changed my mind on it, have been dreaming of it and talking about it since I moved to the Windy City.I have held on to the idea of real Thai food and gorgeous beaches and all the history I can handle, but I do wonder a bit if change would do me good in that too, if giving up on it would be a wiser decision. Right now though, my mind is made up. All that's left to do is buy my ticket (once I know he's got his) and pack my bags. And for that, there is time. There is always time, with the middle way.

But will those beaches and decadence allow me to maintain this patience, this nuetrality? For this, too, I must wait and see. Even if it had been a couple of years, complete with change, I still know me.

Mr. Obama goes to Washington

I can't help but be reminded of that Frank Capra movie, "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" as I watch all of the coverage surrounding Sen. Obama's South Carolina win last night. Hell, any of the coverage makes me think of that film.

James Stewart plays a very young and naive politician who get elected to Senate and immediately butts heads with the corruption of politics. He continues forth, dreams in his eyes and visions in his head, eventually getting the job done.

I think that it would be unfair to say that Sen. Obama is naive, and in fact, as I tell friends, his relative "youth" in the world of national politics makes him less open to the cronyism we'd see with Hillary in office. She's got lots of backs to scratch. Why is it that youth is considered to be such a bad thing?

Last night, as Sen. Obama made his awesome speech (man the guy is articulate) from S.C., I watched in awe, feeling not "apathetic," as many youth are deemed these days, but moved and driven and ready to do whatever I can to help the cause and share his vision with others.

It's this motivation and belief in his countrymen and women (and our nation in general) that has gotten the man to where he is today, and I'm confident that he will bring about the change we're all looking for and desperately need.

As he said last night, we can't afford to go another four years without health care, education and decent wages.

(chilling our champaign outside the office in Iowa, a scant three weeks ago)

Crawl between my covers

My relationship with books is tried and true, reaching back as far as any I've experienced yet, save the one I share with my parents.

I can remember the very first school book I had, red, with a dappled brown horse on it and maybe fifteen pages worth of stories primed to a 1st grader's vocabulary and ability.

And yet, like good literature, I was always ahead of my time when it came to bound experience on the page.

in my childhood, I thought nothing of checking out a stack of books half as tall as me during my weekly trips to the town library. When my mom was in college and I had access to the college library, I traveled to Egypt (Cleopatra), Europe (The Brothers Grimm, Spain (Hemingway) and beyond. When we went fishing, I sat in the boat (or on the ice) and read. Flying, camping, golfing, you name it. I had my nose stuck in a book.

In those days, it was a cake walk (book sale?) to breeze through a stack of books six deep in a week.

By the time I left my little country school, I had read most of the books in our meager library.

Now that my vision is a little bit ganked, I'm not as speedy as I used to be. Add a putt-putt memory and I'm even slower, because I want to remember what it took so long to read and understand.

But I still love language, the words, the stories, the ideas to be found in books.

"Sex cannot do for me what words can," wrote one of my favorite authors, Ursula K. Le Guin. She nailed the essence of a literary life in that sentence, and to this day it stands out in my mind.

Whenever I slip between the musky, soft covers of a new book, the experience is divine. I choose my books with more care than my lovers; some things in life are more important than others.

Seizure-tastic

Before I started having seizures, I thought my life post-stroke would remain relatively normal, i.e., I would have the vision loss, the memory issues, the numb left side, but nothing more.
And then the seizures came.
For a while, my neurologist wasn't sure that's what they were. I was on meds, then off, until my last fuzzy episode, on the 8th, when I had another seizure while caucusing in Iowa.
It wasn't "bad," they never are. I don't spazz out and fall down or bite my tongue, or do much of anything, really. But I get weird lights going off in the dead space of my visual field (on the left side) and I get sort of spacey and blank. They're called partial seizures, because only one part-- the part that was cut and bled and scarred after the brain surgery-- of my brain goes haywire.
There are more than 2 million people who suffer from epilepsy, which is classified as a condition once the individual has had three or more seizures. I've had 5 now, due to my stroke three years ago, but in 70 percent of the cases, the cause is unknown.
I wouldn't say that I'm too thrilled by the upheaval of this additional medical ills membership ranking, but I knew it was possible. When I left the hospital in 2005, my neurologist told me that if I was going to get them, they'd probably start up at around the 2-3 year mark. Right on time, they began before I moved to Chicago, although I blamed the weird feeling of my first one on dehydration caused by drinking too much.
Alcohol, stress, periods, low blood sugar, poor nutrition-- all of these things can cause seizure activity, and I've found over the past year and a half that stress seems to by my trigger, although the Epilepsy Assoc. says there really are no set triggers to this disorder. If neurons want to backfire, or just fire randomly, as it were, they will, it seems.

So now, with a new vial of oblong yellow pills gracing my counter, I'm ready to jump back into the world of the medicated and see how this drug works out.
My last medication was called Keppra, and it made me crazy. Side effects of epilepsy drugs include nausea and sleepiness, but for me suicidal emptiness was all I felt. No sadness, no fear, just plain emptiness. There was a two hour window of crazy productivity for me in the afternoon, but it wasn't worth the pain of being so barren. I got off the drug as soon as I could.
The neurologist who provided the recent second opinion on my condition said that I'm one of 30 percent who feel that way with that drug. Well, good to know. Now if only modern medicine could figure out a cure for this chronic, socially stigmatized condition.
I don't know if these things are going to get worse or not-- that's what the meds are supposed to control-- but I do know that like the rest of the medical hi jinx in cahoots with my body, this is just one more thing to deal with, damn the torpedoes.
I'm not sure what the new pills will do, but the Trileptin is lying in wait, yellow salvation or sadness, I 'spose. For those who do actually suffer at the impulse of this disease, I'm in awe and appreciation of. I'm lucky to be complaining as I am of the way this is shaking up my life, which is to say, not too much. It gives me something to be thankful of, I guess, keeps me from getting complacent or once again taking the crazy things we call life and health for granted.

Seamlessly, the night

Wrapped into the uppermost branches of a spindly tree outside my window, a white plastic bag dances in the cold night. As the milky material flaps and twists in the wind, flickers of the neighbor's Christmas lights sparkle through it, and I'm thankful for the crack in my blinds, allowing me to catch the scene from my bed. Tucked into the folds of soft beige sheets and wrapped around my mushy body pillow, I'm perfectly happy listening to the low, vaporous rumble of the heater at work on the other side of the room. Its song a comforting lull, but not the soft whisper of sleep I need it to be. Dark and warm, my homespace is a sensory wonder right now, which is probably why sleep evades.
From the kitchen comes the quickly bubbly rush of boiling water, soft and tinny deep inside the pot holding it. On the counter adjacent, chicken warms in the crock, a precursor to the coming cold and its defense of chicken noodle soup. A slight wisp of rosemary, the buttery warm scent of stock is lifted into the air and teases out into the main room, an invisible taunt.
I pull blankets aside and pad across the dense, nubby carpet in the dark, enjoying the noiseless endeavor. The feeling of the quiet, dark carpet against my feet perfectly matches the rest of my barely-visible picture; I'm in it without seeing it.
Now in the kitchen, I'm hoping the warm, soothing bowl of tea I've brewed is the sleepy, internal hug I need to finally tire for the night, but after writing all day, the head wheel is shifting and turning incessantly.
Order and time and organization have been flowing through the words with grace and ease, and I'd like to be able to write through the night and the looming chapters. It's been years since a one a.m word session for me, but the solid black letters fall easily into place among their biting, white backdrop, so I keep at it and pray for some sense in the morning.
And then... my cell phone's sharp, jarring chirp rouses me from my literary dream; a hollow vibration of plastic on wood shakes out a final insult to the peace. Who else is up at this hour, breaking my solace with technologically sound intrusions of text?

It's not you, it's me

So after much debate and discussion (with my family, my dentist, my old banker, etc.) I got back to Chicago yesterday and made up my mind about ending my relationship with Sean. I'd had this overpowering urge to do it on the plane, but obviously couldn't, so I wrote out everything I wanted to say. Gotta love laptops.
There was a lot there, and by 12:30 a.m. when he finally returned my phone call, I decided that yep, this has to end. I tried to get myself invited over at the late hour, to do it, with no luck. Sickness or, uh, other company? aside, it just wasn't happening. Oh well.
Then, this morning, my offer of chicken noodle soup to patch up his illin' self (one last act of kindness)received an "I just want to be alone" response.
Wait a tick, am I getting dumped? Hmm, seems like it.
"If you want to be alone, like, on-your-own, just tell me," I said. To keep the rest of the story somewhat private, that's exactly what he wanted.
"Any outside observer would think I was crazy for doing this because you're one of the coolest girls I know, but I'm not in a good place to be a boyfriend to anyone right now," he said.
Inwardly, I yakked. Oh man, the old standby.
C'mon boys, come up with something more creative, please. Even if that's true, it's lame.
Outwardly, I laughed, and agreed.
"Yeah, I did a lot of thinking about this too, while at home, and you know, there's a lot I'm not getting from you that I need. You're right."
Might as well make this easy on all parties right? No need to list all four pages worth of what it was (or wasn't) for me. If letting him say it himself, and thus making himself sound like a bad boyfriend in order to think I won't be crying into my pillow tonight, fine, I can roll with it. But it's just more confirmation for what I already knew: this wouldn't work for much longer. I totally dug this guy and will continue to admire his work whenever I see it in the city or hopefully someday, on a greater scope. But anyone who really knows me, knows me well enough to know that I don't cry into my pillow over things like this. Especially when it's true. It wasn't me. It was all him. Eh, well.

The existence of something bigger

Vibrant pigments and glowing landcapes like this are common in Nebraska at night, and on my last evening at

home, this is what the sunset started out like. We were about 20 miles from home, but the views out there on the open plains are all the same. It's just the foreground scenery that makes a difference. As it does anywhere, really.

I have watched the sun set into the sandy dunes of Egypt; I've seen it slip languidly into the cooling blues of the Alaskan ocean.

But nothing has ever topped my Nebraska sunsets, and as the prairie grasses ate up the sun and my visit with my family came to a close, I was so in awe of the spectacular ending to the trip that I couldn't talk.

We spent the rest of the drive home in silence, and upon arrival, I bailed out of the car and stared up at the pinholes of (now white) light sparkling in the night sky, like I've done every time I get home at night for the past 25 years. Whatever your theory is on our existence, you can't tell me there's not somehing bigger than us up there.

Ring's a round and rosy

“Oh god, my ring.”
There it was, translucent and obvious and out on the sheets for all the world to see.
Ok, it wasn’t all the world, it was just me and the boy, but still, it was clearly not where it was supposed to be. Oo. What would he say?
“You’re right. It does, uh, look like one of those glow-stick bracelet things.”

Now, my thoughts on birth control are that if you’re comfortable enough with somebody to see them naked and likewise share your self, then you should be comfortable enough to discus birth control options with them and deal with the facts of life that come along with preventing it.
Sean and I had discussed my preferred choice of birth control before I got on it again, but I wasn’t quite sure how he was going to feel if he a) felt it and b) if he saw it out of its natural environment.
“Do you have to, uh, do something with it?” he asked, looking at it with some curiosity, as if it were an eyelash curler.

After all, the NuVa Ring form of birth control is a small (maybe 2 inches?) in diameter ring of tubular plastic. Not tubular like the 80s, but tubular, like, well, one of those glow-stick bracelets we all wore in the 80s (it is pretty awesome though).
It’s obviously not like the patch, in that it doesn't stick to your body, and it’s not like the pill, because you don’t ingest it, but it does, in fact, nestle up inside ya.
Yep, that’s right. It’s like using an ob. Tampon except easier and much cleaner.
I decided on this form of birth control a couple of years ago, because it’s so low dose and so convenient. In that time, I’ve only had one other experience like this, and that boyfriend didn’t complain or get weird about it, but people are funny about sex and its accoutrements.
Not me.
appreciating Sean’s look of nonchalant interest, I scooped it up and rinsed it off in the bathroom. Thankfully, it was all over but the um, shouting by this point, so its appearance didn’t interrupt the mood.
And actually, the shouting had already happened too…

This is Why I don't date

When I first started dating Sean, he told me about the Valentine’s day décor at White Castle (the miniburger hambuger shop, made famous in the movie of the almost same name), and I thought “hell, if this guy is still in the picture come Vday, I hope we get to do this.” It was one of the things that made me smile inside (ugh, did I just write that?) when I thought about him as a potential boyfriend.
Apparently, the place does a nice checkered tablecloth-with-candle table experience. It sounds like the perfect place to do a “holiday” that’s all hype and expense with someone you dork around with and kind of dig. I'm all about low-key hangouts, and it sounded pretty much perfect. In theory.
I haven’t really been thinking about the fact that February is coming up, but as I browsed through the new Reader’s Digest last night (the feb. issue) I was reminded of its arrival (and my White Castle dreams). There was an article in the magazine about eharmony.com, and its founder, Neil Clark Warren. The owner of the dating website said that he based couple’s success in a relationship on “curiosity, intellect, appearance, sexual passion, sense of humor, anger management, self-perception, spirituality and values.” The more people’s picks in these categories match up, the more likely they are to be compatible.
My friend Sheila calls it levels of differentiation, and she’s saying that if people have the same level of need or not-need in a certain area and can complement each other in opposite areas, they’re a match. She’s the same friend that listens to me bitch about Sean, wonder over his actions and fawn over his cuteness. I think both she and Dr. Warren are right, but all the clinical data in the world can’t give me the answers I’m looking for with this guy. Only time and experience will do that, and I’m not sure how much of one or the other I’m willing to devote to finding out when I feel like I need to know Right.Now. For the most part, things are good, in theory. But after spending the past few days around my niece and her still-new (four months)boyfriend, I spent all night thinking about my own new relationship.
The two of them are goofy and boisterous, and he’s completely ready to dote on her hand and foot. It’s cute to see, and I’m totally happy for them. I think she needs to be the brighter star, and I’m happy that she’s finding that. And I’m thankful that I got to watch a part of it, because it gives me plenty to think about, but I don’t know if it’s fair to compare their life to my own. While I certainly want to be the brighter star, I’m kind of ok not being it right now. I like being doted upon, but too much drives me crazy (although a little more in this case would be ok). I live in Chicago; she’s happy commuting between a town of 400 people and one of 40,000 to see Rick. She’s younger than me and can still be as goofy as she is; Sean and I have more going on in our fast-paced world, and thus, I think, are more serious and practical. The life she and Rick aspire to (separately for sure, maybe even together) is way different from what I want (independently or with whomever finally makes me happy), so there’s no way to look at them and fit myself into their mold. But from the outside, they seem totally happy with each other. I wonder what observers who know me well say about us (and then I’m reminded we generally hang out with his friends, hmm..).
Aside from looking at another relationship in relation to my own, what about all the quirks and qualities of it that make it entirely unlike anyone else’s? I was talking to my dad about it and he told me that there’s no changing the man, I’ve got to decide if I can deal with what I don’t like, or if it’s too big to surmount. Sean's schedule of long hours at work is “better than dealing with an alcoholic who’s going to beat you,” he says. Gee, thanks dad…
Duh, I know my dad is right; all of the questions that keep swirling around in my head are ones that are as old as (sexy)time itself, and I know there’s no end to them until I make up my mind about this guy, and that’s been the challenge from day one here, and I’m not coming up with any answers. I continue to hang out with him though, so I feel like I need to put up or shut up. But there hasn’t been anything entirely black and white in terms of actions that I just can’t take, and I’m not sure what those actions might be. I know all things take time to determine in the world of dating, but sometimes, I feel like if there’s this much doubt,this early on, I don’t want to stick around to find out just what that final straw would be. I’m afraid it’ll be something serious, like losing my dad or undergoing some more serious health shit. And either way, I’d rather just not have to deal with it in either of those times.

In closing

“He loved golfing, fishing, cooking and traveling.”
As the preacher read from my brother’s obituary, my sister’s words rang through my head. “I had a brother, but you know, I didn’t really even know him.”
It’s been a week since my brother died, and I’ve been so busy focusing on being there for my dad and sisters that I haven’t really thought about the loss for myself, but yesterday it came over me a bit. I didn’t know that he and I had so much in common, and sitting there in the pew with my family, I really wished I had had the opportunity to get to know him as an adult. I think we could have actually talked, as adult siblings, but with more than 25 years between us, I never got the chance to know him. And now I never will. That, more than almost anything, made me sad and reflective, and I’m reminded of another loss, this one more close, but somehow still not as moving as it maybe should have been.
My maternal grandmother lived all her life in Colombia, South America. My wish as I matured and watched her age, was to learn enough Spanish to have a complete, raw and private conversation with her before she died. It never happened, because my Spanish is never as good as it should be, and it’s something that makes me sad to this day, when I think about it. But we don’t get second chances, and yes, of course I know this without the weight of a funeral hanging over me, but it seems like it takes a funeral or another sobering event to remember this. Afterwards, we vow to not take things for granted, insist upon rebuilding old bridges and finishing unattended business with others.
Why do we wait until it’s too late? I don’t think my brother and dad had fully patched up their past squabbles, and I don’t know how that makes dad feel. I know that I’ll never forget seeing a friend on the street and not stopping to say hi to her, only to learn of her death in a car wreck weeks later. Shit like that is spooky, and it happens often enough that it’s not just random. I wish I could come up with some sort of lesson for myself in all of this, but there isn’t one, at least, not a new one. I hate that it was a funeral that brought me home to family and gave me a chance to reconnect with the most important people in my life, but I’m thankful for each day that I’ve spent here on the farm, with my mom and dad, sisters, nieces, nephews and others. I may not have many memories of my brother, and unfortunately, that makes losing him a bit easier. Losing the other parts of my family will hurt more, because I’m closer to them, but in the end, it’s these memories and these interactions that truly make life worth living.

Givin' them the bird

Old people like birds. I've known this since forever, because my grandparents had all sorts of cockamamie home-made birdfeeders strung up all over outside their large picture windows. When my grandpa moved away, we took one of those birdfeeders and added it to our own assortment of home-made and store-bought feeders. each morning before heading off for school, I'd sit with my parents and enjoy the bluejays, robins, woodpeckers, thrush, canaries.. you name it, the birds would grace our front lawn and provide plenty of entertainment and breakfast discussion.

I was never particularly thrilled by the colorful clumps of feather and disease, but I didn't mind watching them, and listening to my parents was mildly amusing until it got annoying. Sort of like listening to an infant learn to talk.

And then I went to college, got a house with a nice hedge and began plotting death and revenge against the birds outside my window. Cardinals are a beautiful, strong and cocky bird (definitely my type of creature) but they wake up around 5 a.m. and let the world know of their presence. For a college student with 18 credit hour semesters, a newspaper to run and a job to hold down, anything that needs attention that early in the morning is akin to the devil. I would sometimes stumble home from the newspaper office at 4 a.m. only to be roused by these bastard red birds and their calls. If there's anything I've taken from the year I spent in that house, it's my hatred for birds. Ok, not necessarily a hatred of birds themselves, but of their call. As for birds themselves, I've been soured on their entertainment factor to no avail.

And now, I don't live at home anymore, so I don't have this type of "entertainment" at my disposal, but I certainly don't have to hear about it that much. Being home though, has reminded me of just how bitter I am against the feathered fauna of Northwest Nebraska. I wonder if at a certain age I'll regain or develop a newfound respect for these flying feats of biological construction, becuase my parents, my aunt, my other relatives-- they're all crazy about the Bluejays or the sparrows or the whatevers. I'm always amazed at how they coo and carry on over the winged visitors on the lawn, and I hope to God my life is never so boring as to invite birdwatching as a sport or pasttime. But I gotta admit: I do enjoy the dodo watching...

The Butterfly and the Diving Bell

"I am probably the only person watching this right now that really knows just how accurate the world looks."

I couldn't help thinking this over and over as the opening sequence of this new French film slowly came into focus for viewers at the Lakeshore theatre. Directed by Julian Schnabel and adapted from the book of the same name " Le Scaphandre et le papillon, this moving film plots the remaning days of former Elle editor Jean- Dominique Bauby after he suffers a massive stroke and becomes confined not only to his wheel chair or bed, but to the deadweight of his useless body.
Once a well-loved playboy and doting father, Bauby's descent into complete paralysis, and thus the depths of his mind, is tracked in this 112 minute visual dialogue of life after stroke.
Bauby is only 43 when stroke takes his freedom during a joy-ride with his son, and at the film's end, is only 10 days past publication of his memoir when pneumonia takes his life. The use of color, blurred images and jarred movements accurately depicts those first few days of hospital life post-stroke, and several times during the film I was moved to tears while remembering my own hospital bed awakening.
For Bauby-- a man intent on rewriting the Count of Monte Cristo-- the irony of admiration and invincibility are one and the same, as he becomes known as one of two cases of "locked-in syndrome." Able to communicate using only his left eye, he and a speech therapist devise an alphabetical system of reading/response for he and other to utilize in communication.
Although the cinematography is tunning and the visual representations of Bauby's new life are impressive, this film is remarkable becuase of the determination and dedication it shows during Bauby's most challenging times.

I know what it's like to go from high-living, invincible playboy (ok, chic chick) to bottom-of-the-barrel low, and I myself, know that I could not have done what Bauby did. the movie's tagline is "let your imagination set you free," and while I think that's lovely, I know that trapped in my own mind, in those first days, I was far from free or even able to imagine anything but death and my own pitiful existance. I left the theatre not quite in tears, but emotionall charged. I happen to be working on a book of my own, also about my experience, and even if it's not the hit that Bauby's has been (c'mon Oprah!!), I think that the writing of my experience is the thing that will finally set me free. It worked, if eventually only in death for Bauby.