For two days I worked from home because of the latest gout flare-up. The first day I could barely walk across the house with the assistance of the cane. The second day was much better, but I couldn’t actually get my foot into my good shoes, that’s how swollen it was. The third morning I was limping, but able to get around the house pretty quickly without the cane. So, I was determined to go into the office.…
Category Archives: life
On apologizing
There are so many situations that would be improved if only people knew how to apologize. A good apology isn’t really that hard to make. When the author known as Lemony Snicket recently made a strange comment at the National Book Awards after Jacqueline Woodson won in the young adult category for her memoir in verse, Brown Girl Dreaming, he apologized as if he meant it. He characterized his comment as “monstrously inappropriate and yes, racist.” He said he shouldn’t have said it, he realized he shouldn’t have said it, and he’s sorry he said it. And he recognized that his words didn’t just hurt Woodson.
Then, noting that he made this remark under a circumstance where what he was supposed to be doing was help shine a light on great books, he donated $10,000 to a campaign for diversity in publishing, and asked everyone else to donate, noting that for the next 24 hours he would match all donations received up to 100,000.
None of which makes is comment retroactively all right, but because he didn’t go with the typical, “if people were offended, I apologize,” or “my comments were misunderstood,” or “anyone who knows me in daily life knows this isn’t the kind of person I am.”
When people go one of those routes, they aren’t apologizing, they’re making excuses and trying to get out of trouble. They don’t really believe that what they said or did was wrong. And they don’t believe that anyone who is offended is “legitimately” hurt.
It isn’t fun to admit that you’re wrong. Most of us are not socialized to admit that we are wrong about something. We’re taught that being wrong is bad—not just a mistake, but that there must be something seriously wrong with us if we are wrong.
Right?…
Drop-kick me, Odin, through the goal posts of life*
When I set my goals for the year, I said I’d do regular check-ins. And for the first ten months I did. I wound up not posting an update on my goals in the first week of November because during November I was working on NaNoWriMo, determined to get 50,000 words into the next novel in that month. Since last year I had posted two or three updates on my NaNoWriMo progress during the month, I figured I would do the same this year, and maybe sneak in a little bit about the over all goals.
But I only did two updates about my NaNoWriMo progress, and neither of them talked about the rest of the goals.
I tried to set very concrete steps for achieving my goals. Inspired by a friend’s suggestion, I tried to identify a better habit to replace each bad habit. So, here’s the check-in for both October and Novemeber:
Continue reading Drop-kick me, Odin, through the goal posts of life*
To absent friends…
Today is World AIDS Day. Each year, I spend part of the day remembering people I have known who left this world too soon because of that disease.
So: Frank, Mike, Tim, David, Todd, Chet, Jim, Steve, Brian, Rick, Stacy, Phil, Mark, Michael, Jerry, Walt, Charles, Thomas, Mike, Richard, Bob, Mikey, James, Lisa, Todd, Kerry, Glen, and Jack. Some of you I didn’t know for very long. One of you was a relative. One of you was one of my best friends in high school.
I miss you all. It was a privilege to know you.
Bruce Ward has written about one aspect of this long struggle: Longterm Survivors: A World AIDS Day Remembrance.
Mitchell Warren explains why We Can’t Wait Five Years to See if the AIDS Response Is on Track.
Finally, if you think this is something that only affects a limited number of people, maybe even people who have brought it on themselves: AIDS-related illnesses are the second leading cause of death among adolescents aged 10–19 years globally, and the leading cause of death among adolescents in Africa.
Thankful
I’ve spent way too much time thinking about, talking about, reading about, or ranting about bad things. It’s Thanksgiving, and the truth is that I have a lot to be thankful for. And sometimes it’s useful to stop and remind ourselves of the good things in our lives.
I’m thankful for:
- my smart, sweet, sexy, long-suffering husband
- coffee
- people who help other people
- flowers
- people who don’t sweat the small stuff
- science
- purple
- my wonderful, crazy, sometimes infuriating relatives who probably find me even more bewildering than I ever do them
- people who love
- radio and wireless technologies
- kittens and puppies and tigers and otters
- ponies!
- books
- portable music players
- all my wonderful friends—who are talented, kind, giving, and must be the most patient people in the world, because they put up with me
Thank you, each and every one. And whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving or not, I hope you have a wonderful day full of blessings, because you deserve it!
I’m not sure what that meant
Not all of the differences are so obviously stark, but I think that they must cringe at things I say and do at least as often as I am dismayed by some of the things they say and do. And I continue to be amazed that we get along as well as we do.
Those of us who do get along, that is… Continue reading I’m not sure what that meant
What a difference no pain makes
I haven’t been posting much for a variety of reasons. NaNoWriMo is eating a lot of my time, for one. But the last two weeks there’s also been near constant pain.
It started a couple of Fridays ago when one of my big toes swelled up with gout. For the next eight days, every morning I woke up with a different toe on one of the feet swollen. The worse was one night when the pain woke me in the middle of the night, and I needed to go to the bathroom, but when I tried to stand up, I nearly collapsed. I literally crawled part of the way to the bathroom. I eventually hobbled downstairs where my cane was, but even with the cane the thought of going back upstairs was too daunting. So I put a heating pad on my feet and sat in the recliner until my husband woke up.
Most of the days that week I worked from home. When I did go in, I had to use the cane to get around, and since the temperatures outside were 10-15 degrees colder than usual for this time of year, and since cold tends to make gout worse, it wasn’t fun. The next week was better. Several mornings my feet were feeling close enough to normal that I almost left the cane at home. By the end of the day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I was really glad that I had taken it with me, because one joint was slightly swollen and in pain by the end of the day.
Thursday was the first evening I didn’t actually need the cane at the end of the day.
Friday was the only day I worked from home last week, and it was the first day that I felt like myself again. Usually on my work from home day, when I break for lunch, I start some soup cooking, and while it’s heating up, I’ll do a little housework. Unload and load the dishwasher, put away laundry, or some other task like that. It’s a nice way to stay away from the computer for a little bit and not think about work, right? But during all of my days working from home the previous week, I just didn’t have the energy. I didn’t have much energy for writing, either. I got writing done, but not at the rate I had been the previous couple of weeks.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but it really felt weird and wonderful that day not to have at least one of my feet in pain. And it was the first day that I wanted to do housework. I didn’t just want to do it, I enjoyed doing it. Being about to move, to stand, the walk around without constantly bracing for how much the next step was going to hurt was almost enough to make me giddy.
So for the last few days I’ve been really grateful for the simple act of being able to walk without pain.
Not forgotten
Then a couple of nurses turned off the monitors, removed the respirator tubes, and turned off the rest of the machines.
I held Ray’s hand, and said “Good-bye.”
I’d been crying off and on for hours—days, technically (though I’d only slept a couple hours out of the last few days, so it felt like one really long, horrible day).
I don’t remember if I cried again. My last chronologically-in-order memory is taking hold of his hand that one last time. My memories for the next few months are just fragments—bits and pieces of time scattered through a fog of bewilderment.
He promised me he would stay with me for the rest of his life. And he did.
I hate feeling yucky
I’ve experienced this enough that I know the drill. I make an effort to drink about twice as much water over the course of the day as usual. In the evening, I elevate it and put a heating pad on it for a while. I get out a pair of my extra long fuzzy socks and wear those to keep my feet and ankles warm. About two-thirds of the time, doing this entire routine for a few days prevents a full-fledged gout attack hitting.
This time? Well… Continue reading I hate feeling yucky
Comedy reveals the truth
It’s less than a minute and a half, and well worth your time. A reminder of the real relationship between politicians, business, and the people—and also how good one particular show was sometimes capable of being.
Roseanne owns state rep on fair wages, taxes, labor rights, and plight of the middle class:
(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)
Font Folly 