Social Intercourse

Although we may all be bloggers pecking away at our little keyboards living wherever. I have observed the phenomena of social intercourse ie; dialogue and sharing of thoughts and ideas. I don't think there needs to be actual face to face contact in order to engage in social intercourse. In our virtual universe of the blogosphere we have posted our thoughts and ideas as a way of communicating with each other. I find it amazing the plethora of perceptions, sometimes similar to my sentiments and sometimes somewhat far removed. The level of intimacy and self disclosure varies as does the intent and content. It is not a passive pursuit, but it is solitary until someone out there provides feedback, a reality check if you will.

I find the anonymity of blogging somewhat comforting. You can say anything and be anything you want to be, or portray yourself as the idealized version of what you wish to be. There is no handshake, wink or nod to read some one's body language. Does this have an effect on how words might be interpreted? Maybe it is a safe way we find to express ourselves when we offer our opinions without fear of retribution.There are things we might say that under different circumstance we might be reluctant to espouse. Perhaps positive regard can be more freely expressed in person with a hug or gesture. How does that translate at the keyboard other than our "LOL" or sideways smiley face :) ? When we speak in person to people whom we know our voice and tone transmits our emotions.

Intimacy can be defined in many different ways. It does not necessarily have to involve body contact. Emotional intimacy is possible especially when it evokes feelings. There are many blogs I have read that facilitate meaningful feelings. The comments exchanged often are our attempts to acknowledge and or validate to the writer we understand or commiserate. Genuineness can only be assumed or inferred. It is necessary to take what is said at face value but there is no face.Perhaps instinct can somehow be transmitted through the keyboard when we are not entirely sure of the motivation.

I recommend that we all engage in intercourse as often as humanly possible.

Less Work More Relaxing Time

Weekends are too short. Saturday is usually the day to run around and do all the errands that I didn't get done during the week because of being too busy at work. Most of the time I enjoy a jaunt into the community riding around stopping at the dry cleaners, the local stores and buying the groceries. I usually run in to people whom I know and we engage in a brief chat on the fly. After doing errands I return home and put away all the groceries which my husband is usually around to help me with. I think he really wants to survey the larder so he'll know what's in the cupboard. It makes it hard to hide things on him because if I don't he will eat the chocolate chips and burglarize the walnuts before I get to make the cookies.

Saturdays also usually involve a fair amount of household chores which frankly I dread because I have usually put things off until the weekend.I'm always doing laundry throughout the week but there is always ample enough waiting in the laundry baskets for at least a few loads of sheets,towels and clothing. I don't like mixing the towels in with the clothes because it causes too much fuzz and lint.There is quite a bit I will hang to dry because I don't want certain things shrunk or shriveled in the dryer.Then of course there is the folding and putting away of all the laundry which I think I'm a little "OCD" about. I save some of that until Sunday which involves an evening routine of ironing my clothes for the work week while watching something stupid on the TV.

If it is nice out I might try to take a walk up the road which is about a 2mile long trip of rural scenery and barking canines which I judiciously encounter. Sometimes I am not entirely certain if they are restrained because alot of people have those electronic fences but I don't know that while the crazy thing is running menacingly towards me. I much prefer mooing back at the cows, or neighing at the horses. During the winter months it is really too cold and snowy to attempt much of a stroll but I have a treadmill down in the cellar which I hardly use.

In the winter unless you enjoy outdoor activities it can cause a bit of cabin fever but I manage to keep busy with all sorts of projects. Of course there's always time to bang away at the computer but sometimes that type of solitary endeavor can be isolating if I spend too much time staring at the computer while my husband is usually yelling back at the TV set watching some type of sporting event. We do enjoy a glass of wine or cocktail in the evening but if not careful it can lead to falling asleep on the couch too early.

We enjoy our season's tickets for a local college hockey team which is a form of entertainment in the area where there isn't much to do. When you live in a rural area it's not like you can just walk down the street to the movie theatre.We do occasionally go to a movie but it is difficult to come to an agreement on what to see. I like the relationship type stories and my husband will roll his eyes because he much prefers car chases and people shooting at each other.

I do like to cook so during the weekend when there is time I am often in the kitchen concocting some type of elaborate meal. I used to bake a cake, brownies or cookies but right now we have had to declare a moratorium at my husbands insistence not to indulge in sweets because of excess poundage.He's right of course.

Sunday mornings are reserved for relaxing and reading the Sunday paper. I enjoy this pleasure and look forward to it when I've had a challenging week to just read articles and exercise my intellect. Keeping up with current events is important and necessary if you expect to carry on an intelligent conversation at work or at lunch time.I also have to peruse the best seller book list and see what author's have published lately.

Our office recently offered a four day work week as an option and several co-workers have chosen to work longer days in order to have a three day weekend. Even though I would very much enjoy a three day weekend I am not willing to test my stamina by working extended hours each of the four days. I think it would basically involve eat, sleep and work for the four days. I have enough vacation time to basically take off any Friday I choose or even add on an extra day to a Monday holiday which I do quite often. See that's the thing, by the time Sunday comes I'm finally beginning to relax and then it is all too soon to gear up again for a busy work week. I can't wait to retire but unfortunately that is likely a few more years away.

Seasons

winter's stark shadows at twilight,
the wise moon's owl
shy morn of early dawn,
cycle of life unknown
adolescent hue of noon
reasons why the dark of night falls
changing seasons,
life's rebirth of latent spring
groom's warm gaze of summer fire
autumn's golden middle age

winter's stark shadows at twilight
evening's tide washes life away

Things I Have Learned About LIFE

• Less is more. Possessions can weigh down our spirit.
• The written word is a cornerstone of culture. Somehow we began to murder the English language mutating words and slang.
• Having teeth is important. We need to pay attention to oral hygiene.
• Reading books enriches our imagination.
• Giving and receiving love makes us better human beings.
• Laughter and humor are necessary. Don't take yourself too seriously.
• Believe in "something".
• Celebrity is incipient.
• Live life without regret.
  
• Be a good listener.It makes it hard to get into trouble.
• How you dress leaves a lasting impression.
• There is no such thing as having too much humility.
• Sex is a way for people to physically connect and promote intimacy in a relationship.
  
• We need food to provide fuel for our bodies.
• Size matters. Have a big heart.
  

Birthdays

As birthdays go I think I'm ready to call it a draw. "Don't ask don't tell". I go through the motions of celebrating my birthday but honestly I would rather not acknowledge the growing old part. I have joked with friends and family that it is time to start counting backwards. I remember in my younger years looking forward to birthdays and celebrating but now it is more something to endure.Yes,with age comes wisdom but you can't really do much about it other than to look or act wise.
The aches and pains are not things I bargained for. I don't recall my parents complaining but then again maybe I just wasn't listening. I recall thinking they were old but now at the same age I am declaring to myself "I'm not that old!" Fifty is the new forty and forty is the new thirty. Don't believe it for a minute. When you begin to grow older you no longer stay up all night "partying" with friends and a 10:oo bedtime seems rational. After a long day I'm ready to rest and retire early, "tomorrow is another day" and pace yourself. When you reach a certain age you start to loose your youthful glow and sadly things begin to sag with the inevitable gravity. Don't get me wrong , I accept all of this but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I work with some people who have parents my age and we often joke about it and I will say "I have shoes older than you". They were born after John Kennedy was president so for them that constitutes history. So I guess to them I represent history.When out in public I will sometimes look over at other individuals who look about the same age and inside I'm despairing about how old they look. We start to move a bit slower and youth passes us as if we are in the way.
At some point it is acceptance to stop fighting the aging process. We can't reverse the aging process so why not embrace it if possible.I do not quite agree that people should have" work" done as a way of stalling the inevitable. I think that is more for the Hollywood types not our everyday people.
I'm not ready for the grave yet but I have come to realize that even middle age is past its bloom.
So for now I will try to keep my appearances up as much as I am able but have stopped dying my hair.I'm okay with having to wear bifocals to see up close.When I gaze in the mirror I am sometimes shocked to see this older friend looking back at me with a reassuring smile that everything will be okay. So you're not 19 anymore, get over it.

Secret Hiding Places / Innocence Lost

When I was growing up in the 1950's and 60's kids could freely roam the neighborhood and there was little or no worry about being abducted by strangers. Neighbors watched over all of us and if you happened to do something wrong your parents were called and told about it. Punishment would be swift and appropriate, usually grounded to your own yard.

Things seem to have changed quite a bit now. You very rarely see children out playing. Play dates are arranged and parents drive their kids over to some one's house. In my neighborhood growing up you just walked down the street until you found other kids playing and joined in. Our parents told us to go out and play and that we did. Everyone in the neighborhood knew everyone else and every yard was a playground. My best friend Jane and I used to wander into other people's back yards, play on their swing sets or whatever, and be invited in for cookies and milk by nice old people. We had quite a racket going until we knocked on this one lady's door who had given us some candy one day. She worked nights as a nurse and slept during the day and we woke her up so she had to inform our parents that we were knocking on her door asking for candy and it wasn't Halloween.We were "spoken" to and told to stop knocking on people's doors asking for candy.

Every kid has a secret hiding place. When you grow up in a neighborhood where safety and security are expected as part of an innocent childhood you are free to explore within the boundaries of the area defined by your parents. At the end of our street was a small wooded area where kids were always building forts and clubhouses. It always seemed to be a magnet for playing army man, jungle, and spy games. There was a small hill which we would climb up and slide down on pieces of cardboard boxes when some one's parents purchased a new TV or washing machine. All kinds of schemes were hatched, our plans to find out things we overheard our parents talking about. There was this poor lonely man named Oscar that did nothing to harm anyone but somehow when a kids imagination takes over anything is possible. He apparently worked at one time as a mortician and the kids in the neighborhood believed he had dead bodies in his basement so we were always skulking around trying to peek in his cellar window. We probably terrorized the poor man. We would run and hide when we saw him walking down the street. He had an unfortunate sister who dressed in old fashioned black clothes and carried a large bag, probably to put groceries in, but we had our own theory that she carried her own dead baby in it.

The only toy a kid really needed was a bicycle. We would spend hours playing chicken on our bikes which lead to at least one trip per summer to the emergency room.We would make pretend we were riding horses and have riding competitions.The only thing that would interrupt our play is when we had to run home to go the bathroom. We were expected to show back up at home for lunch and then try to escape our parents list of chores so we could continue whatever game we were playing. You had to be home when the street lights came on at dark and if you were late they would yell your name out the door until you heard it and hurried home.

As we grew older the parameters of our explorations were extended further. There was a very small "secret"military installation on the other side of a causeway road that held endless fascination for all of us. We grew up in the era of fearing Russia was going to attack the United States so there were fenced in missile bunkers hidden in several innocuous locations which just happened to be very close to our neighborhood. The view extended into Boston Harbor so it was of strategic importance in case the Russians tried to sneak in a submarine.(I am not making this up.) Things were very different back then when the Cuban Missile Crisis had occurred. We would hide in the grass watching helicopters land and take off and sometimes a loud whistle would blow and out would come these missiles out of the hidden bunkers. They would test them every few weeks to make sure they still were operational. You can imagine being a kid seeing this. Our parents did not seem overly concerned about this. I guess they felt a certain sense of security. As long as we stayed away from the fence no one seemed to care. Who knows if the military guys were watching us with binoculars and viewing it as benign activity.

I guess childhood was not as innocent as I choose to remember. Maybe the world hasn't really changed that much. Now we have to be vigilant about another group of bad guys.

Good Morning! Shut up and leave me alone.

I had to give up caffeine several years ago when I began to realize it was effecting my sleep pattern and causing me to feel "wired". I noticed that it was taking me a long time to fall asleep at night and there were occasions when I was laying awake in bed trying various techniques to induce slumber (no nasty thoughts please). You can't function very long with disrupted sleep but I know quite a few individuals who survive on only a few hours each night. That isn't me. When I was in my teens I would engage in marathon sleep sessions until my mother would come in to my room and check to see if I was still breathing. I used to enjoy sleeping " in" on the weekends which is nearly impossible and unrealistic when you are raising children.
I seem to do okay with about 6 1/2 hours sleep each night but 8 is even better. I am not one of those people that wakes up in the morning all chipper and lively. When I first wake up it takes me awhile to figure out what day it is and then once I realize it isn't the weekend I start to convince myself to assume the position (upright), and stare blankly at nothing imparticular, dangling my legs off the side of the bed. I have been known to utter nonsense and confusion, likely related to the last thing I was dreaming. The other morning I woke up in my usual catatonic stupor and began to relate that the circus had come to town and there were no parking spaces. My husband is used to this behavior by now and tends to just go with the flow and will offer a benign comment , "oh that's interesting".
In order to further orient myself I will sometimes totter over and look out the window and check to see what the weather is outside. Lately it usually involves snow and cold temperatures.For part of the winter it was even more disconcerting because it was dark outside when it was time to get up at 6:30AM. Lately it has been getting lighter out in the morning and it also stays light out till 5:30 - 6:00 in the evening which makes it an easier ride home after work.
In the summertime we have our windows open and the birds will start chirping out as soon as the early dawn shows its light and it is hard to ignore the crows plaintive caws. By the way, I really dislike crows and consider them evil.
Suffice to say I am not a morning person. When the children were young and needed to get up for school it became my husband's job to interact with them and supervise because Mommy wasn't quite that swift. When I would try to help it usually would not be a good thing because I was unable to absorb details nor operate my motor functions. They still like to tell the story about how I was really trying but ended up pouring orange juice into the cereal bowl. So it became usual for me to remain in the bedroom and gradually begin my morning routine instead of worrying I might burn the house down by turning on the wrong burner on the stove (been there done that).
If I'm allowed to gradually gather myself within an hour I'm usually myself then but people who have stayed overnight have made the mistake of trying to engage me with verbal interaction and learn I can be unpredictable. I've been known to fade out of the room and seek a quiet corner. It's not meant to be rude I just can't deal with people babbling at me too early in the morning. Of course my husband knows all of this, saint that he is , and has learned to only speak when spoken to. Once I'm talking he knows that my brain is fully functional and it's safe to initiate conversation.
Since I am expected to get myself ready for work I usually pick out what I'm going to wear the night before if possible so I don't have to think about trying to match something in the morning when I'm not at my best. I have also learned from experience that I need at least 90 minutes to get myself on the right track and out the door. By then I'm fine to drive to work and I usually arrive early so I can take some time to unhurriedly get my desk in order before my usual busy day starts.
I guess I am a creature of habit but that is how I have learned to survive not being a functional person in the morning. It would be great if I could sleep until 8:30-9:oo and leisurely meander into the kitchen and have a relaxing cup of decaf tea and maybe watch a little of the Today Show, which frankly I haven't been all that enthralled with lately, especially when they show screaming people as they pan the camera across the crowd and Al Roker starts his shicht. Let's face it I'm kind of a grouch first thing in the morning and my family has learned to adjust to that and stay clear of me. I won't go into further detail but I'm not a good phone talker in the morning so it's not really a good idea to call me before 9:oo especially on weekends because I'm not sure what might be said.