I'm feeling kind of short on words today. It's hard not to go, "Midnight. Cat's mad. So am I. End." I feel like I should write *something* though, because writing generally helps to un-mad me. So I'll fill you guys in on this summer, and what has -- and hasn't -- been happening.
It occurred to me a few weeks ago that if by some insane stroke of fortune I become gainfully employed immediately following my graduation this coming May, this summer is my last summer in the "one huge vacation" sense of the word. After I got over the thrill of being able to date my graduation in months instead of years (!!!!!) I determined that if this is to be my last true summer, I am damn sure going to send it out in style. Enter doing whatever the hell I want *without feeling bad about it,* which is where I always got caught up before. Before, if I woke up at 10 and took a 2-hour nap at one, I felt shameful and lazy. Now I consider it stockpiling my sleep for decades of 9-to-5-ing. I rationalize this by saying that crippled people need more sleep than non-crippled people, because we use more energy to put our shoes on in the morning than the average person uses to run a mile.
But sleep is not the only thing I'm stockpiling. I'm also heaping up some *fun.* The past 2 weeks, said fun has caused me to miss church because my eyes are still cemented shut by sheer exhaustion on Sunday mornings. (Sadly, this does not entail what I know some of you are thinking. I know you are thinking it because I am thinking it, and that's why we're friends: we think a lot alike.) 2 weeks ago was the water park. We drove all the way to Stroudsburg to go to Camel Beach: me and Biz, Mama and Dad. I screamed my way down a water slide or two (after standing in line for 45 minutes on an uphill slope -- and I do mean standing; the hill was too steep to push my manual up) and scraped up my feet nearly killing myself in the wave pool. (Bad balance + thunderous waves equals screaming good time divided by the potential for drowning -- thank God for Biz's Army Lifesaver training, because the lifeguard on duty was a moron.) We wound up the day eating sinfully fattening things at Red Robin for dinner, and it was some of the best family time we've had in months.
This past Saturday (7/23) we went to Crazy Bob's Drive-In in Linden to see the last Harry Potter and also Green Lantern. It was a fantastic night. It had finally cooled down enough to be comfortable; we put up the hatch and Dad sprawled out with me in the back of whatever the heck it is my parents drive. Biz and Mama sat in lawn chairs on the grass. I kicked my shoes off and dangled my bare feet out, ate a greasy, sugary, delicious funnel cake (for which I paid dearly all day Monday), and learned how to find the North star by tracing the Big Dipper. (I love it when my dad teaches me things like that. No one ever really did much of that when I was growing up, that throwing around a baseball and showing me the night sky sort of stuff. I don't think I'll ever get tired of it, no matter how old I get.)
Also happening in my summer is greater comfort through Baclofen! Yay! I went to the neurologist last week for the first time in like 7 years. I expected him to be a total jerk-off, because let's face it, I've seen a lot of high-order medical professionals in my time and most of them are jerk-offs. They start looking at scans and test results and forget basic communication skills. (How to Interact with Lower Level Beings: 101.) He was pretty nice, though. Told me to keep losing weight, to brace my back, and to replace my Flexeril with Baclofen and call him in a week. I want to send the man flowers. I want to freaking marry him. This stuff is great. It makes me a bit drowsy, but hey, I'm stockpiling my sleep and my fun and taking Dexadrine every day, so napping or hopping around jumped up on Speed -- makes no difference to me either way.
at
And there you have the major happenings of the last few weeks in more detail than was necessary. I am proud to report that I have lost a total of 11 pounds since I started counting in June sometime, and the healthy new diet continues to work. Whole grains, lots of vegan food, fruits and veggies out the arse, lean cuts of chicken, turkey or fish, kill the soda, nix white flour, watch that sugar -- and don't eat any funnel cakes at the drive-in.
*Unintelligible grumbling* (Not really.)
Tif
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Maybe It's Mayberry
I love Lock Haven in the summer. It's okay in the winter, too, but I usually don't like anything in the winter because, well, I don't like the winter. It isn't personal, oh Havenites. It just is. But Lock Haven in the summer ... there's just something about it that makes me feel good. Like sittin' in Mayberry with an ice cold Cherry Coke. Small-town summertime with Penn's Quiet Woods all around.
Up and down the avenue, the businesses set out their hand-lettered signs. The florist: "A Dozen Roses, $12.99." The coffeehouse: "Get in here and get some drinks! They're good!" Gio's Cut and Color: "Men's Haircuts, $10." The used-furniture place on the corner: "Ken's is OPEN." (Oh, and by the way, that's Ken standing outside, scouting the street for business.) The Hangar 9 advertises their lunch specials and weekend music on a marquee-style billboard.
That summery feeling is everywhere, in every common thing: open the door to Puff's and you can stand and smell the cigars, get a grape soda out of the cooler and a whip of beef jerky four feet long for 4 bucks. Go down to Ashworx and smell the sage and patchouli wafting out around the seams of the door to scent the air like India. Angle back up the other side of the avenue and go into Walker's Hardware, and you'll find yourself in another era: it smells of sawdust and oil and grease; the men behind the counter still wear flannel shirts, suspenders, and dirty caps; you can get help with, "Hey!"; you can buy baggies of wax-bottle Coke candies and Peachy-O rings and Maple Nut Goodies and Gummy Bears from a turntable by the door for 50 cents apiece, or packets of seeds: flowers of all kinds, squash and runner beans and cucumbers and tomatoes.
Of an evening, walk down Main Street with its herringbone-brick pattern and buy a ticket for a movie at the Roxy. This is my favorite thing: it was in this theater, during high summer of '05, in the cool cavern of Screen One still decorated with heavy draperies and sconces in a throwback to an earlier time, with the Star Wars theme song booming against the walls, that I first realized I was free -- 600 miles away from home and starting over, ushering in a brand-new start with box candy and buttery popcorn. I still get a thrill like that in the Roxy, 6 years later: an electric feeling up my spine, the sensation of the world flinging wide its doors and letting me in.
That I would run to embrace it in a small town kind of surprises me, given that I came from one much like it and wanted to get as far away from that as possible at one point in my life. I'm still not sure I want to stay here forever: there are draws to other places for me, always have been. I'm an explorer. A goer. A seer. A doer. There are possibilities waiting for me all around, and it's all I can do to keep myself from running to try everything like I'm at a Chinese buffet for the first time and everything smells so good. Bright lights? Lots of people? Every corner opening to another experience, another hidden world? Sounds good to me. Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Philly; anywhere, everywhere: the thought that if I so choose, I can someday pick a graduate school to attend and move there makes me absolutely giddy. The only drawback would be leaving my little family behind.
For now, though, I am content to stay. A little restless, but content. I can stand out on my balcony and watch the mountains roll away in every direction, massive sighs of dark, leafy green, and feel cradled in this valley with the West Branch going sparkling by under the sun. I can walk into the deli, the coffee shop, the book shop, and people know my name and what I want: chai; chicken panini, no onions, and pasta with sun-dried tomatoes; period fiction if ya got anything, and oh, a bag of those chocolate-covered pretzel sticks with the sprinkles on them. I am polar opposites wound into the same soul: predictable, but spontaneous. Just as likely to drop everything and shout, "Let's go (on a road trip to New York; see this or that or so-and-so; do fill-in-the-blank)! as I am to tell you that no, I will not wear a turtleneck no matter how much you pay me, that I do not, under any circumstances, consume anything that has been pickled in anything else, and that I will not share my personal space with you overnight unless I really, really like you or your house is on fire and there's absolutely nowhere else in the world for you to go.
I've enough happiness in front of me at this point in time: one more semester before my field internship; learning to conquer my fear of deep water; rolling down the levee for the hell of it; going to my first baseball game; murder mystery dinners with Mama; episodes of "Raising Hope" with Dad; hitting up the new Chinese restaurant with Bizzy; heading to Camel Beach this Saturday -- most of them simple things, small, ordinary, but no less amazing for that. For now, I will stay in Mayberry and drink my Coke, and the summer will roll on like the river while I stay put. It won't be Cherry Coke, though. Blech.
Up and down the avenue, the businesses set out their hand-lettered signs. The florist: "A Dozen Roses, $12.99." The coffeehouse: "Get in here and get some drinks! They're good!" Gio's Cut and Color: "Men's Haircuts, $10." The used-furniture place on the corner: "Ken's is OPEN." (Oh, and by the way, that's Ken standing outside, scouting the street for business.) The Hangar 9 advertises their lunch specials and weekend music on a marquee-style billboard.
That summery feeling is everywhere, in every common thing: open the door to Puff's and you can stand and smell the cigars, get a grape soda out of the cooler and a whip of beef jerky four feet long for 4 bucks. Go down to Ashworx and smell the sage and patchouli wafting out around the seams of the door to scent the air like India. Angle back up the other side of the avenue and go into Walker's Hardware, and you'll find yourself in another era: it smells of sawdust and oil and grease; the men behind the counter still wear flannel shirts, suspenders, and dirty caps; you can get help with, "Hey!"; you can buy baggies of wax-bottle Coke candies and Peachy-O rings and Maple Nut Goodies and Gummy Bears from a turntable by the door for 50 cents apiece, or packets of seeds: flowers of all kinds, squash and runner beans and cucumbers and tomatoes.
Of an evening, walk down Main Street with its herringbone-brick pattern and buy a ticket for a movie at the Roxy. This is my favorite thing: it was in this theater, during high summer of '05, in the cool cavern of Screen One still decorated with heavy draperies and sconces in a throwback to an earlier time, with the Star Wars theme song booming against the walls, that I first realized I was free -- 600 miles away from home and starting over, ushering in a brand-new start with box candy and buttery popcorn. I still get a thrill like that in the Roxy, 6 years later: an electric feeling up my spine, the sensation of the world flinging wide its doors and letting me in.
That I would run to embrace it in a small town kind of surprises me, given that I came from one much like it and wanted to get as far away from that as possible at one point in my life. I'm still not sure I want to stay here forever: there are draws to other places for me, always have been. I'm an explorer. A goer. A seer. A doer. There are possibilities waiting for me all around, and it's all I can do to keep myself from running to try everything like I'm at a Chinese buffet for the first time and everything smells so good. Bright lights? Lots of people? Every corner opening to another experience, another hidden world? Sounds good to me. Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Philly; anywhere, everywhere: the thought that if I so choose, I can someday pick a graduate school to attend and move there makes me absolutely giddy. The only drawback would be leaving my little family behind.
For now, though, I am content to stay. A little restless, but content. I can stand out on my balcony and watch the mountains roll away in every direction, massive sighs of dark, leafy green, and feel cradled in this valley with the West Branch going sparkling by under the sun. I can walk into the deli, the coffee shop, the book shop, and people know my name and what I want: chai; chicken panini, no onions, and pasta with sun-dried tomatoes; period fiction if ya got anything, and oh, a bag of those chocolate-covered pretzel sticks with the sprinkles on them. I am polar opposites wound into the same soul: predictable, but spontaneous. Just as likely to drop everything and shout, "Let's go (on a road trip to New York; see this or that or so-and-so; do fill-in-the-blank)! as I am to tell you that no, I will not wear a turtleneck no matter how much you pay me, that I do not, under any circumstances, consume anything that has been pickled in anything else, and that I will not share my personal space with you overnight unless I really, really like you or your house is on fire and there's absolutely nowhere else in the world for you to go.
I've enough happiness in front of me at this point in time: one more semester before my field internship; learning to conquer my fear of deep water; rolling down the levee for the hell of it; going to my first baseball game; murder mystery dinners with Mama; episodes of "Raising Hope" with Dad; hitting up the new Chinese restaurant with Bizzy; heading to Camel Beach this Saturday -- most of them simple things, small, ordinary, but no less amazing for that. For now, I will stay in Mayberry and drink my Coke, and the summer will roll on like the river while I stay put. It won't be Cherry Coke, though. Blech.
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