Now You See Me, Now You Don't

The other day, an article appeared on my Twitter feed about a recent study that found that "old talk" is as damaging to self esteem and emotional wellbeing as "fat talk." In other words, we do some kind of psychic harm to ourselves if we say things like "I'm old and feeble" when we're really middle aged and pretty much okay. I'd really like to stop this kind of running commentary about my imagined decrepitude, but whenever I try, somebody reminds me that I'm aging.

I went to the dermatologist the other day for a routine visit, and in the midst of it all he told me that the redness on my neck was common in older women, that my thinning hair was related to aging (and bad genes), and that the broken blood vessels on my arms and legs were...you guessed it: common in aging skin. Honestly, I don't much care about any of these things. I'd rather not go bald, of course, but I don't feel even a little bit concerned about the fact that I look my age. What I am extraordinarily irritated about is that as a result of being middle aged, I'm suddenly invisible.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. I'm not invisible to everyone--just to every stranger between the ages of 13 and 25. When I was I Europe this summer, young people walked into me on the street all the time. They might seem to be looking right at me, and then they'd practically knock me to the curb. It got so bad in Scandinavia that I started chanting "I AM MOT invisible, and I cannot be walked through." Now it happens at school at the time. I'll be walking down the hall, and people plow right into me. Alas, while invisibility might be the plight of the middle aged woman, it has not rendered me silent. Beware, youngsters. If I see you in some hallway and our eyes meet, and still you run into me, I'll give you an earful--even if I can't give you an eyeful.

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Steel Band

Last night, my friend Wanda asked me to go to a steel drum band concert at a church in Bellevue, Kentucky, and I smelled a new thing. I'd heard steel drums before, but never an entire band of them, and a concert in a church had such a European appeal to me. That last part is silly, I know. There are tons of concerts in churches in the US, but, truth be told, except for a choir concert, I've never attended a concert in a church in this country (yep, I hear how pretentious that sounds). Anyway, I said a quick yes and met Wanda at her house in Bellevue at 7:30.

Wanda knows music: she has played several instruments in her life, she owns (and plays) a piano, and she listens to music regularly. I don't. And that goes for that entire series. I don't play an instrument, I don't listen to music unless I'm in the car, and the only musical instrument I own is an old mandolin that my aunt found at a garage sale. I took a semester-long music class in college a million years ago, but all I remember about it is that I had to memorize Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and identify movements on the exam. I took two years of piano lessons in college after my parents bought a piano, but I was a bad student and a worse musician, so I quit. I like music, don't get me wrong. I'm just not well versed in it, and except for a handful of singer-songwriters I love, I rarely go to concerts of any kind (or at least I don't initiate such excursions). That's probably why several of my new things have been music related. I have a lot of catching up to do.

St. John United Church of Christ in Bellevue has a free concert series every year, and last night the Miami Steel Band performed. The church is small, so only a portion of the huge band played, but they made a big sound! The director, Chris Tanner, was the perfect person to introduce me to the world of steel drum music. He took the time to tell the audience about the short history of steel drums. I was surprised to find out that steel drums have only been played as instruments since the 1930s. Somehow, that fact made me feel better about never having heard a steel band before. He explained how they were used first in Trinidad by musicians who had no instruments and--voila!--came up with the steel drum. He asked one of the band members to carry around his "pan," or drum, and the inside was concave, with a series of dents in it, each playing a different tone.



The music was fun and incredibly varied. They played Calypso music, pop, some jazzy sounding numbers--they even play classical pieces, though they didn't do any last night. I really enjoyed the music: my first steel band concert was a blast. Afterwards, we crossed the street and had a drink at a Bellevue restaurant. We sat at the bar next to a man who was drinking alone--drinking quite a lot alone, I think. As he was getting ready to pay his bill, he took his $20 bill, folded it just at Alexander Hamilton's lips (holding the bill from behind AH's face), and made the dead president talk to us: "Hi, I'm Alexander Hamilton. I'm a son of a bitch." I'm not certain what the intent of the performance was, but it made me laugh. So ended the evening's entertainment.

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Crack and Couch

Time to be honest. I have fallen off of the new thing wagon in the last few months. I blame it on home renovations and the new class I'm teaching: these new things have made it harder to find the energy and inclination to try more interesting things. As a result, I listened to the siren song of the "crack blanket," and I've returned to the couch in the evening. Bad news. The couch means TV and a 9pm nap. Have I mentioned the crack blanket? For Christmas, my sister gave me this furry, fleecey blanket that is about the most comforting, sleep-inducing piece of fabric ever created. I tried it on my bed, but it doesn't work there: too small? Too warm? I have no idea. On the couch, though, it is magic. That yellow fleece blanket is like a drug. Sometimes, at work in the late afternoon, on days when I'm really stressed out, I think about the bliss of coming home, eating dinner, and crawling under that blanket for a couple of hours. It's addictive. It's crack.

Like many addicts, there comes a day--or a series of days--when you realize that the drug is going to take you down. You just have to get that furry, yellow fleece monkey off your back. My days of reckoning came when I started writing about China for my creative writing group. The more I wrote about the power of the new and about the way that my travels in China brought something in me to life, the more I realized that my new thing campaign had run off the rails recently. The narcotic appeal of the couch and blanket had made me return to the path of isolation, and that's not good. Plus, the external new things--a roof, a closet reno, a new lit class--were just not the same as a personal challenge to change things up in my life.

Last night, my friend Wanda and I went to a concert that was step one in my return to novelty. I'll write about that in another entry, though. When I got home, I looked through the spring Communiversity catalog of non-credit classes offered at my university, and I saw a couple of couch-busting possibilities. Dear readers, help keep me on the straight and narrow: send me some ideas, ask me what I've done. Most of all, if you see me out and about, and you notice a haze of yellow fuzz clinging to my clothing, organize an intervention.

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Fences and Good Neighbors

The mold remediation is finally finished, and I need to move onto my next new home improvement project. At the top of the list is the kitchen, but I'm knocking that down a slot. Next up: a new privacy fence in the yard.

About a year ago, I got new neighbors, a family of eight. They're nice people, but they entertain in their yard a lot in the spring, summer, and fall, and their kids stand at the chain link fence that separates our yards and yell to me ceaselessly. Cute kids, but I need some privacy, so I'm putting up a fence.

So far my home improvements projects have been relatively painless. I don't much like having my space invaded by workers, but I'm proud of myself so far. I've rolled with the changes and have managed pretty well. My loan money is dwindling, but I've made good progress. So far, my projects have included a new roof, gutters, and downspouts, masonry work, attic insulation, and mold remediation. A few more months of this, and I'll be done!

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Writing Group

I'm excited about a new thing that I started a few months ago, though at this late date, it's not so new. Still, I want to report on it. In the fall, I joined a new group at school: the Creative Arts Faculty Learning Community. We're a group of professors who are all interested in some manner of creative writing, and we meet once a month to talk about writing in general, and our own writing, in particular. I started out wanting to write creative non-fiction about the deaths of two friends a couple of years ago, but that piece wasn't ready to be written--I wrote one sad little poem and called it quits. I didn't want to quit the group, though, so I found a new topic. The New Thing Campaign! Actually, I'm focusing on my trip to China, but I'm imagining that some of my blog will find it's way into the piece. So far, I've written about eight pages.

Last Friday, I conjured up some courage and read some of it to my friends Paul and Wanda. They laughed in the right places and said nice things about what I'd written, so that helped. Of course, they'd both been drinking, so it's possible they would have been entertained as much if I'd read them the restaurant menu. On Friday, I sent the first five pages to my CA-FLC group. I'm apprehensive, but excited to hear what they think. I'll report back after we meet next Friday!

One other new thing has developed out of this group. With their help, I've developed a writing routine that I've come to love. For the last month, I've spent a couple of hours on Sunday mornings writing. I wish I could devote more time to it, but this is a start. Today is Sunday, so it's time to head up to the study. Off I go!


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The Mold Man Cometh

On Monday, the mold man comes to start remediating the mold in my walk in storage area. With his permission, I've begun the process of emptying the space, and it has been exhausting. First, I hauled out all of the old clothes and laundered them. Next, I sorted through them, deciding what to keep and what to stuff in the car trunk to take to Goodwill. I ended up with four big garbage bags for the thrift store, which I just dropped off. I have another bag of old professional clothes to dry clean and take to school when we have our annual business clothes drive. And this is just the clothes! This storage space is full of everything from old shoes, a filing cabinet full of paperwork from my dissertation-writing days, a big dresser, cat beds and a cat carrier, a bunch of long florescent bulbs...and my wedding gown.

The mold problem isn't serious, as mold problems go, but it has to be resolved. My plan is to make this space into a nice walk in closet, so even this hauling, cleaning, sorting, and tossing process is time well spent. It's exhausting, though, and it makes me come face to face with my excessive buying habits. All of these clothes and shoes! No human needs this much stuff. If I'd had saved the money I spent on all the stuff tossed into that storage space over the years, I don't think I'd have needed the loan to rectify the mold problem. Shameful.

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