Raincheck

This will be a weird blog tonight because I really don't know how to start or end...I just know the middle.

Tonight I find myself trying to figure out the answer to a question. I was asked, 'can I get a raincheck on that?' And I know what they mean...I think...I can guess their intended question in that...

If the question is meant to ask, 'will you forgive me' then I know what I'll say. Yes.

However, there is part of me that wants to rail. This life is fleeting. There are moments, and if you miss them, you miss them. One of my dear friends is getting married in less than a week and I won't be there to see it. It is incredibly pointless and somewhat hurtful if I were to ask her 'can I get a raincheck on that'....that little thing of missing your wedding. Now...she and I have talked and she knows why I can't be there. So I didn't ask her for a raincheck. I knew. I knew this would be a moment in her life and I would miss it. The reason matters to her, and to me, but really it doesn't change the facts. I'll miss it. No turning back, no changing it.

The moments in our lives where people can be there or not is not the equivalent of going to the store to find they are out of what'chits and whosits and fudguzitmaflos and you can get a raincheck and come back at some later, more convenient time and pick it back up. Nothing lost.

So there is part of me that wants to hit this person who asked me the question, not because I can't or won't forgive them...but because I find their question maddening. There is no getting this moment back, it's gone. You missed it. I am not God, so I can't rewind life to give you this fragment back...this isn't like hitting pause on your tivo, or dvd, so you can go grab the phone and come back to where you left off. It's gone. So, NO...you really can't get a raincheck. I am not a store, and this moment is not a product. You missed it.

Life is moving on. The hours passed, the minutes fell away into eternity....it is gone. And either you make priorities and decisions in your life with this in mind, or you live with the consequences.

So screw it...I'm going to go and book a flight. Put my money where my mouth is. I'm going to see my friend's wedding this weekend. Life is short. The people in your life either matter or they don't. The moments in our lives where we make the choice to be there for the people we love, and we have memories....or we simply have missed moments, a void, an absense, a regret. I may be able to find a deal and go, or I'll know at least I tried, and yes, that I missed it.

No rainchecks. Just life.

Cure for vampirism

So if you ever go to the doctor and they run a blood test and it comes back seriously deficient in vitamin D they perscribe some major powerful liquid sunshine to make up for your vampirism. Apparently a lack of vitamin D can do a major job on you.

Let me clue you in...so when you have an energy drain that causes you to result to doctors...and you tend to be anxious in doctors offices and you only hear a fraction of what they say...and you think you hear 'we'll put you on these one a day for a couple weeks and then look at over the counters'...you pick up your perscription.

But, then, I also tend to hate drugs, minus excedrin migraine, and I'm almost OCD about reading the literature they staple to the bag. And, there are often times when I read the papers and think 'is the way I'm feeling now worth risking some of the side effects...' and sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes it is no and I leave the medication in the stapled bag. So I remember reading the stuff on vitamin D and I remember the phrase if you OD on it call poison control immediately and thinking ok...well I'm not swallowing the whole bottle so I'm good.

Then I take these powerful liquid sunshine pills everyday. (With food, a snipet that trickles in from the doctor's visit.) And, let me tell you...six days later and my energy comes back kablamo style and I'm feeling giggly, and I'm talking to my best friend. I'm telling her the powerful sunshine drugs are working and awesome and she asks me what the dosage is and I reply 50,000 IUs. Her jaw hits the floor...and keeps going slinky style down the stairs...and after a few sputters and what-nots (all of which are entertaining and fun to someone who is oblivious to you know the realities of drugs/health stuff...i.e. me) she has me read her the bottle.

I discover it's one pill a week, not a day. After a little googling I discover max dose of D typically is 2000 IUs a day. So a little mental math reveals that my real perscription should have been for a little over 7000IUs/day released slowly over a week (so still a case for massively deficient Ds). And, well, I've been dropping 25 times the normal max...and 7 times the perscribed amounts....hmmmm, maybe they should have put more warnings around the poison control center thing...However, neither the paper nor online materials tell you that massive quanities of D produce giggles. It does. So I'm still not worried...perhaps maybe a little concerned but giggles are fun. My friend asks why I didn't read the bottle and is trying to flutter between 'holy *** cows' and 'are you alrights' and ...well lots of reactions (again fun) and asking/telling me that you always read the bottle. To which I reply I did, but only that first night when I was zapped for all stuff, and truthfully I didn't touch the perscription for like 2 days after it was given to me....did I mention I hate drugs...and doctors...and...so how I ended up both reading and being instructed on the 'week' vs. my memory of 'day' is beyond me.

Of course all this is discovered after hours and well...I don't really want to rush myself to the ER because I'm giggly. So I'll wait until Monday to talk to the doctor and see what we do from here...

However, all that is to say, if you find yourself dreaming of a caffine IV to get you through the day seriously consider the question (do you get enough sunshine) and perhaps look into supplements. Vitamin D is awesome stuff. Energy, giggles, sunny nature...all good. But don't OD on it, there are apparently some warnings that don't factor in giggles.

So here is my humorous tribute to the fact, I probably shouldn't be left alone...and definitely not put in charge of meds when I can't see straight for vampiric energy depletions. I find all this even more humorous simply because usually I tend to sunburn myself on a good sunny day even with sunblock applied, and it appears I've just sunburned my insides...ah well...at least I don't hurt to touch, and I'm not setting my own climate zone...just giggling.

So happy day. I recommend vitamin D for the cubicle-o-holics, and any rainy place the sun doesn't shine. I recommend D. Stick to less than 2000 IUs. But get it in your system. Save yourself some dough from all the trips for caffine....then you can buy yourself a present! Tah Dah!

More Poetry from 2005

So...I found this notebook I completely forgot about....and apparently October of 2005 was a very poetical month. ;) Thus, here is another poem from way back...and it's still rough, but the basic concept and story I was sketching out is there. I hope you enjoy.

Michelangelo’s Marble

My existence
has been a
fixed state
of permanent Is.
Eons of time have passed,
and yet a –moment —only.
Without I am cool & firm
an appealing exterior
I have weight & body

Yet one day, a passerby’s
hand selects me
from the lot of
“drab slabs”, words I over hear from one,
While another excitedly whispers
about my beauty, my worth
Into His hands
I am carried, lifted from
my dreary surroundings
of other stones and muck.
I am cleaned and placed
upon a pedestal.
Oh! My life will be of ease
and appreciation, surely.
Now all will see…
KAAAAhhhhhRRRRAAACCCCCKKK
Without quite knowing from
where, or how, or why
I suddenly feel this
Fissure
and the painful split
a Gouge
and OH! the Throb from---
WHACK
I shore up, I resist, yet
Pieces crumble, fall,
cascading away
I’m caught between
pain and outrage.

Who are these rough hewn hands
that assault
Who presume the right
to destroy
Who whittle away
my opposition, my composition

CHISEL SCRAPE
the hammer moves
and I feel
the WALLOW
the BLOW
the BANG & BUMP
bashed and broken
pieces of my once stone state
coat the ground, hang suspended in the very air
unsure where to settle—departed, cut off
now only a fine perspiring sheen,
my dust, gloves the hands
hides the hammer.
Cool breeze wafts through the air,
slicing through a new cleft,
and for a moment there is my voice,
my mourning cry.
FRACTURE
from a distance
I hear this rumble
of whispered words
mutterings of form
of the genius of my faint silhouette forming,
Then the voice of the Sculptor
firmly stating He hears me, indeed,
heard me crying to be freed.
Sand and dust swirl together—time blurs.

Secluded with the Sculptor,
now, I cleave to His vision,
as my narcissism--banked, silent,
leaving behind a deep response within
still struggling to form
NOTCH
hunks, and layers litter the floor,
and are swept away…
leaving me only knowing
I’m not all undone.
Compliantly I present all I am,
all that remains,
to these Scarred hands
holding both me and the moment
tools of transformation—
INCISE
a death exists
a gap larger
than any crevice
looming between
my abilities &
His raw power
I try and compensate
do my share
SNAP
A flaw appears,
a score
and I shudder within
impatient & without Perfection
The Master carries on
ETCH
A fervor
of motion and movement
surround us
I’m no longer comfortable
with a life of leisure
and an egocentric world
I reminisce in silence of grain & texture

in an unfolding transformation
of inscribed chiseling.

RASP
A cloth drops in a puddle at my pedestal

Quietude descends, as a hush
reverberates across my waxen patina
an awe pervades
I clamor to reveal
The Man—
who saw within, full fragments, a solid mass…
who wrestled a reluctant me, separate and entombed…
fragmented slivering refinement…
to present me, now, a new creation
taking complexity, history, a story, and a light
melding together
what no one else could see…
now Displayed.

~Kelly B
10/13/2005