Journal & Musing

  • Say Hello To My Little Friend

    Ah the stress. The emotions that pour out as verbal abuse. Not like that. But snapping, Yelling. Someone gets hit with it if they are within listening range. Someone becomes an unintended target. Then on and on until the dog gets kicked. You know the story.

    And the things we let get to us that cause the stress…some valid, others contrived. Mostly contrived, but maybe not.

    I need a baseball bat and a room filled with fragile things. The inanimate kind. The kind I can smash without feeling bad about afterward. Without feeling regret. Like I do with the snapping and yelling at people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    This is why I hide. But hiding doesn’t go over so well, either.

    I’ve been walking in 100+ degree heat (that’s 38+ Celsius for most of you) twice a day since summer began. Okay, not every day, but a lot of days. The heat burns off the negativity.

    I should have walked longer this time.

    I just erased a rant that would rival Scarface. I needed to write it. I needed to erase it. No one should be subjected to that level of anger. No one should feel it, either. I watched Anakin Skywalker turn into Darth Vader last night. I don’t want that to happen to me.

  • Dentes anguis Romanian

    I’m pretty sure my cat got bit by a snake. I can almost make out fang marks under her fur on her neck. Maybe it was a vampire.

    Silly cat.

    I might rename her Friedrich Nietzsche.

  • 1 am prompt

    What’s the oldest thing you own that you still use daily?

    My brain.

    I could say any other part of my body, but sometimes I do nothing all day and make little to no use of my legs. I’ll go an entire weekend without muttering a word if I have the house to myself. I have the autopilot mechanisms that my body uses to stay alive, like breathing and pumping blood, but I don’t think it makes sense to say I use my lungs or heart. Those get used. Se usa el corazón. They use themselves.

    Even to say I use my brain daily is a stretch. Some days I just watch TV. Often I misuse it. Abuse it. Se emborracha.

    I do use my pillow to sleep with. And I use my cats for entertainment. Pero ellas son flojas. And cranky.

    And now I will use the muscles in my face to close mis ojos y dormir.

    Buenas noches, El Mundo. Sleep well.

  • Feynman And The Art of Letting Go

    What notable things happened today?

    “Notable things” has a positive connotation, I believe, and perhaps that means I’m an optimist. “Notable” is another way of saying “noteworthy,” which is in fact neither good nor bad. To me, if something is worthy of recalling, a positive implication is arguably the reasonable assumption. This quality of distinction is important for the sake of this post because today, which is now yesterday seeing as it is now after 3 am, there were only two things worthy of note among a plethora of bad, unworthy things. I got to spend more time with my family than I would have had I not driven to Dallas at all. I had planned to stay for two nights, but an unfortunate situation came up that required me to drive home today instead of tomorrow, and upon arrival I discovered my cat’s face is swollen, likely from being stung by a wasp or something. She’s been in the house for two days, so hopefully she killed the thing in the process of being stung, lest I lie here in danger of being stung, myself. I also received a disturbing text on my way home and another unsuspected, unrelated delay in seeing my husband. And I don’t feel well. Fortunately, a second thing “of note.” meaning a second positive thing to write about, is that I came home to a clean house and a cozy, made bed.

    I started a book (two, actually), written by Richard Feynman. They are audio books, which I’m not sure count as books, but they should. I listened to them on my drive.

    When I was a young physicist, I worked with Nikola Tesla’s great nephew as an analyst. He asked me once about my thoughts on Dr. Feynman, of whom I had to admit I knew nothing. I felt humiliated, undoubtedly the most humiliated I have ever felt—and I’ve spent much of my life humiliating myself. I was a good analyst, and I knew a lot, but I did not know anything about the most prolific scientist of the twentieth century. And I had to meekly admit this dreadful lack of knowledge to Tesla’s great nephew.

    I have been doubting myself quite a bit lately, and yesterday, while dwelling on my self-doubt during my long drive across Texas, I was reminded of that horrible moment that solidified the fact that I have good reason to doubt myself. I asked myself why I never took the time after that encounter with Dr. Tesla 2.0 to educate myself on Feynman and his work. So I searched a bit and found that he wrote a few books, one appropriately and rather ironically titled, What Do You Care What Other People Think?

    I listened to him speak through the voice of some random voice-over guy, and I was comforted. I also listened to a couple of lectures he gave and discovered that he is probably the most knowledgeable person I have ever learned about. Ever. Though he was a theoretical physicist with a strong background in chemistry, he lectured on the role of physics in all other sciences. He explained how specific enzymes determine physical traits of all living things and how quantum particles determine the enzymes. I should have been fascinated by the content, but more so I was fascinated by the man. His approach to science in general was so simple. So practical. He made me feel that not knowing things is more interesting than knowing things…something he actually stated again and again. I still need to know more. I still have much to learn. But I don’t feel inadequate anymore. There were many things he claimed to not know, not because those things were unknown at the time but because he hadn’t learned them yet.

    This from a Nobel-Prize winning physicist.

    My peek into the mind of Richard Feynman today was most notable, and I feel vindicated in some way. What I knew nothing of, what humiliated me most of all, actually made me feel worthy of being a physicist. Not because I learned more physics but because I was told to not worry about what other people think of me and my not knowing.

    After considering my terrible day, I now see how good the day actually was. I let the many bad things overshadow the few good things. And I’m now realizing this is my cozy, made bed. 

    Don’t run from things that scare you—I said that once. What scares you likely doesn’t exist and probably won’t come to pass. And if it does, this great man I met today told me not to care what other people think about my shortcomings. So don’t do that, either.

    Life is full of notable things if you pay attention.

  • It all adds up.

    If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

    I imagine my tagline would vary depending on the day, the time, and of course who is referencing me. I have been called Jessica Day, Leslie Knope, and on occasion batshit crazy. Once I got a mom award from people who aren’t my biological children. I’ve been called inspiring and at times exhausting. My favorite, however, is “so weird.” I also like hot mama, but no one has ever called me that. Combined, these adorations might add up to:

    “An oddball empath with a tendency to go overboard for the good of others as a guise for overcoming boredom, she plods along with staff in hand leading the masses in a claim to victory over the ordinary.”

    That’s a bit much, but even this commentary proves the point.

    My dad asked me once why everything had to be so extreme with me. Well, Dad, there ya go.

  • June 8: day 8: I did this one thing today

    I hadn’t written a story in 99 words until today, The task wasn’t easy, but it was lots of fun. If you want to read it, click here.

    I still have not painted the room.

  • Prompt at 2:07 am because I can’t fucking sleep

    Describe your dream chocolate bar.

    When I was a kid, there was a chocolate bar that had holes in it. They advertised it as being a chocolate bar that was like Swiss cheese. I guess it was Swiss chocolate? Seems dumb now, which is maybe why that bar doesn’t exist anymore (I haven’t seen it), but when I was young I wanted one baaad. I never got to eat one, though.

    What I did get my hands on was a Zero bar. I ate one with a Pepsi after every swim lesson when I was 7 years old. I would drown in sugar while waiting for my ride home.

    My favorite now and forever is a Skor bar, though I settle a Heath bar when I can’t find a Skor. I like toffee. A lot.

    Snickers will do when I’m hungry, but those are too sweet. Nougat makes my teeth feel like they are about to fall out from instant cavities.

    In truth, I haven’t had a chocolate bar in a really long time. I save my calories for ice cream.

  • June 7: day 7 + 3 minutes:

    Today I had planned to paint my bedroom. This is what actually happened:

    There is tape around the edges, a plastic cover is precariously shielding my furniture and whatnots that were shoved into the center of the room, window treatments are down, and a little bit of paint is visible on few edges. The paint can is closed, and the brush is soaking.

    In other words, I spent most of the day watching TV.

    In other exciting news, I wrote a flash fiction story! Yay me! If you are interested in reading it, here’s the link. I wrote it in response to a prompt by this guy.

    That is all for today.

  • June 6: day 6 + 1 hour, 32 minutes: can’t sleep

    Daily writing prompt
    Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
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    My favorite book from childhood is Helen Keller. That isn’t the actual name of the book, but it was something similar to it. Or maybe the name was completely different. Whatever the case, the book was an autobiography written, I think, by Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher. Or was it written by Helen, herself? I really need to look this up. The point is that this book was a game-changer for me. I must have read it a thousand times. On the back cover was the alphabet in braille. I tried to learn it to no avail. (To no avail…that is an odd expression.)

    Helen Keller was a miracle. What she overcame is beyond what I can put into words. The book served me well in adulthood, as I discovered, not by choice exactly, that I am able to connect with children with disabilities, particularly severe autism. I was direct support for a nonverbal, often violent six-year-old. He and I bonded quickly, and he responded to me better than anyone else. Why this happened, I attribute to Helen Keller. Or perhaps my fascination with her had something to do with my natural ability to connect with people who cannot connect with the world.

    I was a loner as a child, always off in my own little world. I guess on some level, I related.

    Must I choose just one book? The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling was one of my favorites. The cover of the book had an illustration of a jungle with eyes peering through the darkness. I remember a tiger climbing out of the page. This image was ripped straight from a memory I had when my family drove through the southern countries of Africa. Mostly, the landscapes were savannahs, but there was a place (Botswana, I think) that looked JUST LIKE THAT COVER. Obviously, there weren’t any tigers, but in my mind there could have been. Everything scary lurked in the dark behind the tangled branches. I read some of the book, not all, but Rudyard Kipling, I felt, was a kindred soul.

    Busy, Busy Town was another that I loved. I liked how all the different kinds of animals played different roles in the town. Everyone had a job to do, and they all did it with smiles on their faces. Indoctrination? Eh, maybe. In any case, I was introduced to societal norms in a utopia. The colors were bright, and everyone was happy. I wanted to live there. In a way, I still do.

    I also had a record player and a vinyl that had all the Peter Rabbit stories on it. The Tale of Benjamin Bunny was my favorite. But I’m not sure that records count. I think they should.

  • June 6: day 6 + 2 minutes: The Authors, Particularly

    Daily writing prompt
    List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
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    Books that have the greatest impact on me do so mostly because of how they are written. How some authors play with words makes me feel more than their stories do. I can say these books or those books are my favorites, but truer to my answer to this prompt is the authors, themselves.

    James Joyce made the greatest impact. Ulysses is so brilliantly written, I feel lightheaded and a bit euphoric when I read it. Joyce was an eccentric when it came to writing. He refused to use quotation marks because he didn’t want his words to be closed in by upside-down commas. For that alone, I love him. He liberates me to break the rules. In Ulysses, his timing is brilliant, his wit is genius, and the way he crafts ideas is untouchable. I read the book for how it reads; how the story plays out is secondary. The impact? He made me love literature more than any other writer could.

    Kurt Vonnegut, specifically his book Mother Night, digs deep inside me. Vonnegut is crafty and smart. He is the guy you want to drink a beer with at a bar and talk with until dawn. How he shoves into the light the absurdities of the human race is beautiful. Political correctness is not a blip on his radar, which allows him to highlight the ugly truths of the human condition. Why Mother Night in particular? Because of how the message cuts me. The antagonist cares nothing for anyone but his true love and his craft (which comes in first is hard to say), to the point that he accepts the honor of doing a patriotic service in secret to satisfy his lust for admiration by the enemy. In the end, he wins his freedom in his trial for committing crimes against humanity when the secret of working undercover comes to light. He convicts himself for caring only about what he loves, however, and commits the execution he feels he deserves. His last words and the final line in the book, “Auf wiedersehen,” could be for anyone, but are likely spoken to the Nazis he kept company with for his own gain, who he likely feels he will meet again in hell. Or maybe they are to Helga, his love, who disappeared in the war. Regardless, one can’t help but feel sorry for the guy, nor conviction for one’s own selfishness. That conviction hit home for me, and the story could not have been conveyed so brilliantly by any other author. Vonnegut is a cynic and an idealist rolled into one, much like I am. He, however, is the clever one, and I have not seen his equal in that regard. I look upon his voice to guide my own.

    Margaret Atwood made an impact on me, not only for the terror The Handmaid’s Tale violently stirred in me but because of the purpose she gave the book. Atwood paints a picture of bondage and fear that I could not shake. Not even now as I type these words can I think on the book as being simply a good read. Within the tale, she opens the door for her readers to tell their own stories. She encourages her readers to write in the end. I intend to.