monday meh, leg up edition

Back from DC
With a wonky knee:
Woe is me!

On the road again...

It's conference time again -- leaving at early-thirty tomorrow a.m. enroute to Washington D.C.

Got any messages for me to deliver to our fearless leaders?

When you see a fork in the road, take it.

Thank goodness blogs don't require regular feeding/watering/exercise, or this little site of mine would be flickering dimly away to nothing. On Monday I was - or thought I was - all ready to scribble out a week's worth of witty posts, but then I got the sad news of a cousin's passing, and took a little perspective break for the rest of the week. You could say I've sort of had to pull over to the side of the information superhighway here, stop for a while, and look at just where the heck I'm headed, literally and philosophically. (But don't give me a GPS to tell me where to go - I want to map out my own route, and pretend I know where I'm going ahead of time!)

Sometimes I feel like I'm navigating one of those notorious roundabouts they have in New England, where a moment's indecision or uncertainty results in a missed turn and damns me to drive around again to get it right. If I'm lucky, I only need to go around a second time to get headed where I want - or need - to go. I get annoyed at myself for screwing up, but as long as I have enough gas and plenty of time to reach my destination, driving in circles and taking the scenic route is really no big deal in the grand scheme of things.

As time goes on, though, it seems more important to get things right, to not take any wrong turns enroute to doing and being what I have to do and be. My cousin's cancers manifested themselves suddenly, and he became so ill, so quickly, it was shocking. Until a few months ago there wasn't any reason to think he didn't have time to take his time getting wherever it was he was going. Isn't that what we all believe?

Leaving work yesterday, I heard someone singing that gawdawful Garth Brooks song, "If Tomorrow Never Comes," and in spite of my dislike for that kind of schmalz, I thought maybe the cosmos decided to put the song on my playlist to remind me that any one of us, at any time, could run out of tomorrows. I am beginning to feel a sense of urgency, not to cross things off my ever-growing To Do list, but to make sure that I have prioritized it, to make sure I do the important things. Yet while I struggle to keep friendships and relationships in good working order, I have to get my taxes done, pack for a conference, write a paper, and yes, even schedule a long-overdue physical for my own self, even though the thought that something more malignant than my hatred for Fox News could be manifesting itself makes me hyperventilate....

Not that I feel bad, mind you. Except for having "If Tomorrow Never Comes" stuck in my head now, I think I'm probably doing just fine. And if this post has put that tune in your heads now, I do sincerely apologize, and offer this antidote:


Now go blow your nose and tell someone you love them.
XOX,
wench

monday meh, ignoring the date edition

Seriously.

First Funky Friday in February

The week started with a hellacious respiratory inflection, and ends with a visit to the Dr.:



I felt almost well enough to drag my carcass to campus yesterday, and so I did. Coughed and sniffled my way through my class last evening, too. The kindly professor gave me a special assignment, and told me to go home and drink some Jack Daniels.

I didn't have any Jack, but since my prof has written a play about Grace O'Malley, I'm pretty sure she'll accept Tullamore Dew as an alternate assignment. Just to play it safe, though, I'm going to complete some extra credit tonight...

Slàinte!

Wienerdog Wednesday

Didn't know that Pablo Picasso was owned by a wienerdog, did you?