Geography

I seem to recall a previous post touting the beauty of Winter, having overcome my prior distaste for it.  And when my neighbor said she had definitely not changed her opinion of Winter which is that she never liked it and always will, I made some condescending comment inferring that she, too, would change her mind when she became a little more evolved, as am I. 

But I think it's getting the best of me, this year.  I'm having a little trouble keeping my normal, sunny disposition about life in general and Winter, in particular.  I'm currently working night shift.  I have three more shifts until I start a new job.  Working at home, in my studio.  Not doing art or writing that book I've had in the back of my mind for decades, but doing telehealth nursing.  I'm not naive enough to not know I'm going to hate it, just as I have every other nursing job.  But I digress.

I sleep all day, now, even on my days off.  I got up at 3pm today, just in time for the rest of the world to start winding down, attuning themselves to the slower, evening hours preceding bedtime.  I went to bed, for the final attempt, at 7:15 a.m. today.  That's not helping the depression. 

I work with a girl who tells me she was "delivered" from her crippling, suicidal depression a couple of years ago.  I kept my skepticism to myself, biting the insides of my cheeks as I frequently need to do, but in a short time, she began sharing what sounded a lot like full-blown depression-inspired thoughts.

I miss my children.  With them gone, there's not much left for me here and yet, considering a move to another state to be closer to them and the rest of my extended family, I find myself queerly sentimental about a place I've railed for the past 2 years of my need to leave. 

I'm going to miss it here.  I've grown up here and it is here I raised my children.  I was born and raised to physiological adulthood in the Midwest but it was here, in the south, I "grew up".  I'm not sure I can effectively separate myself from this place, it is so much a part of who I am, after thirty-five years.  I'm not sure where it stops and I begin. 

It's the unbearable loneliness that drives me to my family.  And yet, I wonder.  Will the move eliminate the loneliness? 

Grade School Drama

Dinner conversation tonight between my grandsons, aged 8 & 9:

Hey Jason, do you remember last year when Nathan and Brooklyn were boyfriend and girlfriend and then Nathan broke up with Brooklyn?

No, Brooklyn broke up with Nathan because Nathan was a huge embarrassment to Brooklyn.

Quiet Sunday

Sunday my husband had stuff to do and left me, alone, in the uncharacteristically quiet house for the entire day.  I'd gotten up, made a pot of coffee and was drinking it sitting up in bed while quietly catching up on emails.  Having finished my coffee I eventually made a protein shake and brought it back to the bedroom to drink.  I was feeling very leisurely and quite decadent in my pajamas, in bed at nearly noon on a Sunday.

An aside, when I sit up in my bed there is a very deliberate ritual I go through.  All the stars have to be in alignment in terms of pillow placement, etc.  I spend a lot of time in the aforementioned manner, therefore having a vast array of paraphernalia on the bedside table and around the bed on the floor.  My back is a wreck so I have to sit on a thick pillow with 2 thinner pillows to my back with one of them folded over providing lumbar support.  I then place another of the thickest pillows on my lap where I then place my laptop.  Coffee and other beverages along with TUMS, a clock radio, a lamp, a box of Vicks Kleenex and a roll of toilet paper (I use the toilet paper when I can, hoarding the Vicks Kleenex for "special occasions"), numerous pairs of glasses, lotions, etc. 

So.....I'm settling back into bed and the house phone rings and some guy leaves a message wanting to know something about a meeting today that my husband has information about. Freddy (my husband) is in Hot Springs with a friend so I try to get the guy's number off the caller ID because I didn't answer the phone and just let him leave a message. The caller ID isn't lighting up again, for some reason. (All of our house phones need to be piled up and burned). So I have to go through a million messages to find his number. I finally get it and it wasn't easy because the piece of shit answering machine keeps changing the days so today was saying Monday but you never know which day it's going to tell you it is so you can't just skim through according to days. So I get the number, go back into the bedroom to call Freddy and give him the guy's number. I sit on the bed, put the computer back on my lap and somehow knock my huge, purple protein and blueberry shake off the bedside table but I miraculously manage to catch it with my forearm and I'm able to hold his against the side of the bedside table to keep it from hitting the floor but when I lean into the shake to stabilize it till I can grab it with my other hand, my computer starts to slide off the pillow on my lap and head for the floor. So I have to turn back around to move the computer but then the shake starts to fall so I lean back into the shake to hold it back against the bedside table but then the computer starts to slide, again. So somehow I manage to sort of swoop the shake back onto the table but at some point, the lid comes loose and blueberry shake goes

All.  Over.  Everything.

I mean it's 4 feet up on the wall, it's on the lampshade, its on the piece of shit house phone on the bedside table, it’s on the clock radio, it's on every electric cord and the entire power strip on the floor beside the bed, it's on all 3 pairs of glasses on the table, on every bottle and roll of toilet paper and kleenex box on the table. It's all down the front of me, on the upholstery on the sleep number bed (that will be there from now on, won't wipe off), on the duvet cover, the pillows, the floor on the computer screen, on the wall to the left of the beside table, on all the back massage things on the floor beside the bed.

Meanwhile, I've already dialed Freddy and he's answering the phone in his truck on his way back to his friends's house from Hot Springs only to hear a loud, shreiking "FUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!" on my end and probably thinks I've been scalded or had a wreck, or something. I regain my composure enough to tell him what's happened and to give him the number only I can't find the piece of paper I wrote it on. I finally find it and he tells me he doesn't have a pen and is driving and must call me back.

I should've taken a picture of it but didn't think to do so. All I could think was what a mess it was and how long it was going to take me to clean it up.

How quickly things turn to shit.

mad

they say i'm mad
i know they're right
as years increase
i stand and fight

where once i lie
so not to see
when beaten down
they bludgeoned me

i sweetly smiled
on my back
i thanked them kindly
bruises black

i rose above
no grudge i kept
i hid the pain
my spirit wept

abusers freed
my wounds abscessed
denying self
my self protest

against the crime
that paled compared
to that of mine
myself, impaired

the harm i caused
denial-clad
was to myself
for i am mad

Summer Day

 

 This is what I saw from my bathtub this morning.  Big, beautiful, cumulus clouds that later brought us RAIN, BLESSED RAIN!  

Hubs is in New York for two weeks and I'm batching it.  It took me a little while to get used to it, which I didn't expect because I pretty much live for the chance to be alone in my own house (which never happens), but I'm acclimating to it nicely, now.  

Yesterday I dug out this beginning of a quilt from 1981 and ironed and lint-brushed all the pieces and rotary cut some new ones while watching a segment from Birdman of Alcatraz that I must've accidentally taped instead of Gunsmoke, years ago.

I've been on a VCR tape kick ever since I found a bunch of nice ones at a junk store last week.  I've been back once, already.  To the junk store, I mean, for more VCR tapes.  I got a set of 10 episodes of The Red Skelton Show, The Sound of Music, Urban Cowboy and some other stuff I can't remember right now.  Got some train tapes for Hubs' birthday next month.  Essentially spent all my allowance on those and an ice cream freezer that I made a batch of peanut butter ice cream in when I got home.  It feels like summer.  

Say It Isn't Sew

I was out in my studio the other day, waiting for my next massage client to arrive, as I so often do, and looking around at all the art supplies I've accumulated over the past couple of years and not done anything with.  Cool how-to art books, empty journals,

  a craft pasta machine, acrylic paints in little bottles,

little pointy and rounded tools for sculpting polymer clay into food and dolls heads and recognizable characters from real life,

watercolors, brushes, a new sewing machine I HAD to have after seeing it at Penny's in 2003 and on which I've never sewn anything save one straight line 7 years ago just to make sure it worked and that I still remembered how. 

 

As usual, I felt little jabs of remorse and failuredom for having had so many plans over the past 10 years and accomplishing so little.  And it's not really even about failure or accomplishment, it's about not doing the things I love to do and doing, instead, stuff I care less about than this stuff.  It is so hard to push through the resistance to change the way I spend my time.  Not able, somehow, to connect the dots between what I do and what I get.  Wanting one thing and doing stuff that will never get me there.  

A week ago, I went to the store and picked out fabric and batting and matching thread for a baby quilt for a girl I work with whose shower is TODAY.  (I told you I bought the stuff ONE week ago, right?)  I thought, while taking these pictures on Thursday, that I must be out of my fucking mind to have thought I was going to start and complete a baby quilt in, what was then, 4 days.  And not even whole days, either.  And one of those days I was scheduled to work 12 hours in the ER.  (To give you a little point of reference on my timing, I started a quilt for my first grandson when his mother was pregnant with him.  I finally finished it and gave it to him when he was 6 years-old).  

And not only that, but I already had all of this that I bought to make a quilt for the 4th of July.....1997.

And this that I cut a skirt pattern out of like 20 years ago and never sewed together and now, who would wear this?  I'm not opposed to the color or print but it's all cut out in the pattern of a skirt that's completely out of style, now.  Arghhhh! 

 And this fabric that I bought and never did ANYTHING with.  I totally love it, still, and probably should have made the baby quilt out of it, now that I see it again.

This one really hurts.  It's a pile of partially assembled quilt blocks that I started to replace a quilt made for my sister by her close friend that I destroyed when I lived with her in 1981.  NINETEEN. EIGHTY. ONE.  That's 30 years ago.  Right?  Yeah, 30 years. (Math's not my forte, okay?).

 

So Thursday, after my client's massage was completed and the place was cleared out, I locked the door and started working on that baby quilt.  The one for the shower today.  (I thought it would be best to start from the present and work backward). 

I didn't think it could be done.  I really didn't.  But I worked all the rest of Thursday and 10 hours on Friday and when I got off work last night at 7, I started working on it and finished it at fifteen minutes after midnight.  I tossed it in the washer on the delicate cycle and went to bed.  This morning, I dried it, (then rewashed it and dried it again because there were two little dark spots on the hem that, oddly, appeared darker when the quilt was wet than they did when it was dry and that turned out, after all that, to be two little pieces of something brown stuck inside to the batting where they are entirely irretrievable).  Then I ironed it.  And this is what I ended up with.

I even dug the gift bag and tissue paper out of a stash I've been rat-holing for years.  Ironed the tissue paper and that's that.
It feels really good to be sewing again. 

Chat Hell

I just got off an online chat with my website provider.  After I disconnected I thought how incredibly well the whole interaction epitomizes the plight of Americans today.  Everything is so friggin' complicated.  Everybody is so frustrated and it's no damn wonder.  See what you think. (By the way, I was trying to be funny at the last but I think he may have misinterpreted me.  Whoops!).

Just a second while we connect you with a web advisor.

You are not currently in a chat session.

Hi, my name’s Mike. How can I help you?

Mike: Hi! Thank you for contacting Intuit WebSites. My name is Mike. How can I help you today?

Ann: I want to add a Paypal button to sell gift certificates online

Mike: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.

Ann: Okay

Mike: Do you already have a paypal account?

Ann: Yes

Mike: Great from Sitebuilder click Ecommerce icon at the top

Ann: Do I have to reload sitebuilder every time I use it? I can't figure out how to get into it without downloading it every time.

Mike: Just clicking the icon on your desktop if you're using the downloaded version

Ann: That's funny. Okay.

Mike: You will then click the Ecommerce-->paypal button. The right side will then have a button "Add" to add the product information.

Ann: I can't figure out how to make a drop-down menu because I offer so many different things and also how to set it up to print out a gift certificate. On the PayPal site I can do all that but I can't get the gift certificate to look right and tech support said to have you guys do it. ???

Mike: Our paypal button feature doesn't allow that. You'd have to login to paypal and use their button creator.

Mike: Then it generates html code for the button. After that you can paste it into the html box within Sitebuilder.

Ann: It wanted html code for the gift certificate "logo". That's where I got stuck. That's when tech support said you guys would have to do it.

Mike: Html for the gift certificate?

Mike: It doesn't work like that

Mike: Html is website coding

Ann: Yes. For the logo, otherwise it looked like...I know it's coding.

Mike: But it's an image right?

Ann: It wanted a website to go to to get the logo. Right. An image

Ann: So I called tech support and they said a web designer has to do it.

Mike: Well that is actually incorrect. Sorry for any misinformation.

Mike: Our design team only builds complete websites and not graphics for a logo only.

Ann: How do I give them a website address with my logo on it?

Mike: Give who your website address?

Ann: There is a field into which I was suppose to type a web address "http: etc" for my logo to be added to the gift certificate.

Ann: On paypal.

Mike: Oh ok thanks. So you need to create a page with a link to download or print the gift certificate. Then provide them that page. For instance www.mywebaddress.com/giftcertificate-50.html

Mike: and create a page for each certificate amount.

Ann: Oh, maybe.

Ann: How do I do that only make it only accessible to people who have already paid for a gift certificate?

Ann: And when I clicked on that link it was a website and not a gift certificate.

Mike: Well there's nothing to stop people from printing out 50 or sending the link to friends if they know internet basics.

Mike: When you clicking on what link?

Mike: I'm not sure what link you are referring to. 

Ann: The for instance link above.

Mike: That's an example

Ann: I know. Can you tell me how to do this some way?

Mike: You need to create pages with the gift certificates

Ann: How do I do that and not have them look like webpages? How do I make a page that looks like a document?

Ann: So that I can then link to it via paypal to create a button like I want?

Mike: Did you upload the gift certificates to sitebuilder?

Ann: I don't think so.

Mike: Ok so your other option is to upload the gift cert. images into the file manager and then provide that url for paypal.

Ann: Will there be a way to restrict access of that url by other people?

Mike: There is not with our system and that is a complex task to protect the page.

Ann: Suggestions?

Mike: Without advanced web capabilities the best option is paypal. The other option would be our storefront that allows sales of downloadable products. This provides the file download once the person purchases. But same issue, people can print multiples.

Mike: I don't know of a way to not allow more than one printout

Ann: I just went back to Paypal's site and looked again. It didn't want a page with the certificate on it. It wants the logo. Can I create a page with just my logo on it?

Mike: logo=image. So you need to just upload the image. But that's not for the certificate.

Mike: That's the logo at the top of the paypal checkout page to look more custom.

Ann: Okay.

Ann: The field where it asks for the logo says, "http:". That sounds like it wants to go somewhere for the image, not just have me upload it, right?

Mike: It's the url of the image

Mike: You would upload the image into the file manager of Sitebuilder. Then the url would be http://yourdomain.com/image-file-name.jpg

Mike: That's just an example and you would use your domain and file name

Ann: How do I do that?

Mike: Go into the file manager of Sitebuilder and import the image

Mike: Then publish/upload the image

Ann: And then how do I know the web address to give them?

Mike: Check above URL I provided as example

Ann: I know but how will I know what mine is, specifically?

Mike: You use your domain

Mike: Then the file name

Ann: And what else?

Mike: That's all

Ann: mywebaddress.com?

Mike: That's your domain right?

Ann: Yes but if I go to that site I don't just have an image, right?

Ann: Image=logo

Mike: Correct it's an image

Mike: It's not a site

Mike: just the url to the image itself

Mike: That's what paypal requires

Mike: And I said "logo=image" because when they ask for "logo" they just mean the image

Ann: Dude, I know that.

Ann: I just don't understand how I can tell them to go to mywebaddress.com and they're going to go right to this image I upload.

Mike: I am only trying to help you so please do not be rude.

Mike: Again, http://yourdomain.com/image-file-name.jpg

Ann: I'm not trying to be rude. I totally get that you're trying to help but I don't know how to explain it.

Ann: Okay. I'll try it. Thanks.

Mike: Have a great day

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