Monday, April 17, 2006

Whine, Cheese, and a Girl Going Crackers

Well, I am sitting at the meetinghouse desk with a heating pad up my sweatshirt and nothing stronger than advil and tiger balm to staunch the torrent of my whinging. I’ll at least keep all whining parenthetical. (stupid patriot's day that makes things be closed!! stupid closed pharmacy! stupid prescription lying in the stupid closed pharmacy doing me not a bit of good! Boo hoo!) Everyone seems to be out/in for the night, so I could close up shop. But the internet access is calling me, and keeping me here. (Plus I'm feeling too lazy to find a new outlet for my heating pad. Waaah.)

I keep writing posts about why I'm not writing posts, but I haven't published any of them because none of them seem to be quite accurate. I'm not sure why I'm not blogging. I am not sure whether I'm more or less self obsessed than usual these days, nor do I know if my degree-of-self-obsessedness at any given moment contributes directly to the quantity or quality of my blogs. It's not that there's nothing interesting going on. Life continues to be lovely/catastrophic/mundane/annoying/nifty by turns. There are flowers everywhere.

(I miss my bike! Boo hoo!)

Sometimes I want to write a post because I have an urge to remind "the world" that I'm still here, I'm still questing, I'm still trying to be true, I still have things to say, I’m still cool. Sometimes I want to write because I want "the world" to remind me of these things. These don't feel like very good reasons.

Sometimes I don't want to post because I'm feeling too tired to worry about how perfectly faithful I'm being in this sentence or that. Sometimes blogging seems like one more way to mess up...a way that's easy to avoid. Sometimes I don't want to post because I wonder if this or that idea of mine is worth the headache it might bring me if someone disagrees or misunderstands. That's not very brave. And I don't know if not wanting to be bothered about something that sometimes feels very ethereal and optional is a failure of faithfulness. I can't tell if my vague guilt on this count is justified. It's never been that God's handed me some big message that I'm refusing to give to Pharaoh. This blog's never been like that, it's always been whatever I was thinking about at the time that I thought other people might like to think about, too.

(Should that last paragraph have been in parentheses? And do I need something to whine about in this parenthetical remark? That's easy--waaah, I'm out of Diet Coke and my sternum's cracked! Sniff.)

I’m not terribly interested in inulging myself in a long meta-think about why I’m not posting. It just sometimes kind of makes me sad that I’m not.

Things have been fairly quiet in my world these days, even before falling off my bike. (I was wearing a helmet! It didn’t help! Waaah.) I’ve been doing some reading that’s been useful, and some reading that's been silly. I’ve been knitting some sweater:



(And since I fell off the bike I’ve been lying in bed a lot! Poor me! But how can I really whine when I have such a handsome boyfriend who wears things I knit for him even when it's too warm for them and poses all cute while I stand on a table and take endless numbers of pictures of him? How? Like this: Poor me! Some of my torso is broken!)

One lovely thing that’s happened lately? When my friends heard about the accident, I think every single one called. One morning I had five phone calls within an hour and a half. For a chick that sometimes likes to sit in the garden and eat worms, or sit in my bedroom and mope about how I have no friends, it was humbling and made me thoughtful, and it made me feel less like whining and more like rejoicing. (Don’t rejoice with a cracked sternum! It hurts! Waaaaah! Boo hoo! Poor me!)

Thank you, friends! And thanks to everyone who left me loving well-wishes on here, too. (And now I am going to go find some more advil. For my poor broken bones. Sniff.)

10 comments:

Rob said...

hey! i have to get into bed b/c it's past my bedtime, but I can't wait to see you again. I didn't get to the marathon either, but I did find this great deal on a nifty reading chair on craigslist and rented a zipcar and drove 45 minutes to get it and got lost and got found and got home. It was Aunt Margaret's chair apparently, and now it graces my studio. I feel like I should listen to jazz or something--it's just that kind of chair.

Broken sternums suck. I'm sorry about your bones and bike and all. Princess was so looking forward to tea!

Amanda said...

Oh my goodness. I'll have to visit you and your new chair! I'm so happy for you--you've waited so long for this moment! :) I think you should blog and name it, as with the bike.

I sound as if I mock, but verily, I do not.

Liz Opp said...

Amanda,

Glad you are well enough to be up and about, searching for a heating pad and outlet; taking a photo of a successfully knitted sweater; and being busy answering the phonecalls of friends.

I'm also glad you were wearing a helmet, even if you believe it didn't seem to do any good!

Don't push the writing; you know it'll happen when yo least expect it... or when you have the least amount of time for it. smile

Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up

Lorcan said...

Hey kiddo... I hope thee will forgive this suggestion, in light of the whole helmet thing... thee may remember I have a full suit of armour lieing about in the closet, and well, like Penn's sword ( tip of the hat to Beppe )... well, perhaps when thee is well enough to ride again ( should thee be on top of tables until then????!!!... ) Well, if thee would like I can send it to thee, so that thee would fair better if the unintended happens again, a sort of Joan of Arc meets the Gray Avenger sort of a look...
Yes... it might be a bit hot in the summer, but, I have an idea for ... well, a cooling unit, imagine the classic beenie copter, as a helmet top, attached to a small fan inside the helmet ( should I be posting this before it is patented?... ) well, there are so many possibilities and things to consider, the less visability, but extra protection, the other other uses of the bennie copter power, a compressed air car horn on the side of the helmet? The mind boggles...
Feel better...
lor

Robin M. said...

The helmet did work. You have a cracked sternum, not a cracked skull, don't you? Maybe you could wear Lorcan's armored breastplate next time.

Take care and lots of advil.

Amanda said...

I hope it was clear that I was mocking my own propensity to complain, not actually fishing for sympathy! (but I thank everyone for it all the same!)

My paleo professor sent me an article on the thick "bicycle helmet-like" skulls of a certain hominid, when he heard the news. And I think I did say something about needing to wear armor when I ride, as a plain old helmet wasn't cutting it.

I can get a set of chain-mail biking clothes...that should take care of the overheating aspect!

Amanda said...

I forgot to add that the prescription did come through, and I am whining a whole lot less today. Hooray for the open pharmacy!

Lorcan said...

IT was LOST! I wrote thee an outline for an exoskeliton bike clothes, with an austrolopithicean sckul with the big sagital creast and huge jaw to protect thy head, and a neander rib cage... all you need to start thy doctoral thesis! ah well, it is gone into the e-infite...
I'm glad the meds came through...
Keep smiling, no laughing,
feel better
lor

Lorcan said...

While you are still on pain meds ( I am much more funny, I am told, when listened to while the listeners are on pain meds... ) do check out the Transportation Survival Suit, I am building for thee... ( on the blog... )
:)
lor

Teri said...

Knitting will take you through a lot of tough times and give you the time to think things through. And a guy with the guts to wear it whatever, is definitely a keeper! Hope you heal up soon!