Month: December 2008

This is What You Live With

Posted on December 30, 2008 in Bipolar Disorder Stigma

Were they speeding as they passed? I hadn’t the slightest.

Napkins

Posted on December 26, 2008 in Cats OCD

square530 Sometimes I can observe my compulsive peculiarities. Let me preface this by telling you about a cat that I used to have as a companion. Ambrose liked to jump in the tub while there was still an inch or two of water in it. He would stroll from end to end, lifting a paw at each step, and shake it dry before putting it back in. It might take him two or three minutes to cross the tub, but he had to have his ritual.

Tonight I caught myself engaging in a similar observance using a pile of napkins. Lynn will attest that when we go to the local soup and salad bar, I like to take a bunch of napkins. As I eat, I wipe my mouth after every bite. That’s right, I take a bite, wipe, and take another bite. It’s automatic with me and I have learned to prep myself for it properly by ensuring that I have enough napkins for the task.

Aware as I am of the habit, I choose not to break it. I have never pressed the issue, but I suspect that if I did, I would feel very uncomfortable. I avoid the company of doctrinaire environmentalists and my mother for this reason. There’s no sense in putting myself between the anxieties.

Wet Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2008 in Festivals Video Weather

Wet Christmas on 12seconds.tv

As of this writing, there is no wet Christmas. The 80% chance of rain is not materializing as the storm waits at the coast deciding whether it wants to come ashore.

Happy Holidays to All except Bill O’Really who won’t appreciate the gesture because he’s a sour old apple.

The Quake of ’89

Posted on December 24, 2008 in Earthquakes Silicon Valley

I had felt it while driving and the telephone poles had bent over.

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Math & The Mist of Untruth in My Life

Posted on December 22, 2008 in Childhood

square528 I might have embraced music if some sadist hadn’t told me that there was math in it. Another told me the same was true of linguistics, so I lost my confidence that I should ever be good at languages. My fear of math drove me into a corner. I never got to enjoy the happier sides of mathematics due to the fear engendered in me by arithmetic and by cruel folks who liked to point out how my aspirations were all tied into my weakness. My family used to say, almost as one voice, that arithmetic was everything in the business world. The cruel irony of my working life was that I wrote and edited spreadsheets, a task that emiserated me.

I believe the voices of my youth all meant to encourage me to pay more attention to my arithmetic and my algebra. But they only managed to douse my fire, to spray it with a chaotic mist of untruth.

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