Monthly Archives: January 2015

Toby and Anne Lamott

Up very early this morning, not even 3am, because I couldn’t sleep. Toby got up, too, thinking, as he often does, that this means it’s time for breakfast, which it almost always is, for him, as soon as I get up. But not today, not this early. He tests me many times, heading toward the kitchen, hopping up and down, doing the entire repertoire of excited doggie tricks he enlists to enroll me in the euphoria of his mealtime. But, I don’t fall for it. I sit on the sofa, pull out my laptop; he sits beside me on the couch, sighing for effect, letting me understand his disappointment that he doesn’t get to have breakfast during what is, essentially, the middle of the night. I stand firm, however, not giving in to the manipulations of my little canine boy, until, at last, he hops down from the couch, wanders back into the bedroom and waits for me to come and pick him up onto the bed so he can go back to sleep.

Sometime, I hope to be able to explain to him the advantages of delayed gratification but, since he’s a food-motivated dog, I’m not so sure how that will work out.

I’ve been reading Anne Lamott essays for the past couple of hours – crying, laughing – and feeling grateful there is someone on this earth who understands the rust spots on a tarnished soul, pointing out that rust is just oxidation and oxidation means that something has just been working extra hard to be seen. JS

Looking forward to seeing the ZOO CREW

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Stef scanned and e-mailed a bunch of photos for me last night, all of them taken during my time @ KZEW-FM in Dallas, 1974-79.

Oh, my hair was so dark back then and my skin so smooth, my heart so open and unjaded! Brought back great memories of such wonderful people playing KILLER music all day long and actually doing some good in the world. I was lucky to have been part of that and to have been able to meet the people I did, hang out with them, even play softball with them.

Our team, as you might imagine, was the FLYING ZOOKEENIES and we played anybody who challenged us, even some 8th grade girls one time, and even Toys By Roy (who almost beat us in a “squeaker”) on a hot & humid Dallas summer’s day.

I am so very much looking forward to seeing the ZOO CREW at our reunion in April and am grateful to Ira “Eye” Lipson and Bill Harrison for bringing it all together.

If we’d had a team yell (like BOOYAH! or even HOOK ‘EM HORNS!) I’d shout it out right now, but we didn’t, I don’t think, beyond PARTY! or ROCK AND ROLL! or LOOK OUT, YOU IDIOT! Or, if we did, I don’t remember it. What I do remember is how I loved them all. JS

I’m feeling a strong urge to write to someone about this

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Stef took a couple of Nyquil capsules last night and, thus, she may sleep until Tuesday.

One time, some years back, when I was still rolfing in Dallas, I felt I was getting a cold. My friend Shirley handed me a Coricidin-D cold tablet, which I immediately took. Made it to DFW and onto my Delta flight, but I fell asleep so hard that what woke me was this very young, very sweet flight attendant trying to lift my big head out of the aisle (where it was hanging) and back onto my chair (from where it had slipped) all so they could get past it with the beverage cart. I don’t remember anything about that flight beyond that.

I’m thinking that sleeping through an illness might not be such a bad thing; I feel the same about addictions, too. I think we should be able to be knocked out for a period of time and, when we awaken, we are amazingly free of, say, brownie or bacon molecules floating around in there which make us want more of them. I might be even more brilliant than I’d imagined and am now feeling a strong urge to write to someone about this. First, I’ll go make breakfast – no brownies, because I am so amazingly strong; plus, we don’t have any, but bacon, for sure. JS

Terrible SLAP YO MAMA influenza strain

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Stef is really sick today. This may be the worst day yet. It’s hard to wait out the flu, but there seems to be no alternative. Cough meds make her puke. Theraflu almost made her jump out the window. Hacking and snorting sounds compete with the sounds of Saturday morning TV. Each room is a flurry of tissues, a littered battlefield of teacups, medicine jars, vitamin bottles, ripped open packets of flu symptom deterrent, and half-eaten pieces of toast. The miasma of illness hangs in the air like a wet diaper, heavy and boggy.

I am not sick and, yet, I feel droopy because of it. I have washed and rewashed my hands until they are red and raw little nubs; I don’t want to catch this flu, but there seems nothing else to do except, perhaps, swirl myself into a giant wad of Saran Wrap and hope for the best.

We both got a flu shot this year, just like every year, but, apparently, the CDC dropped the ball about which of the influenza bugs would be the most virulent. This one, the SLAP YO MAMA influenza strain, made it in under the radar and, so here we are, muddling through it. There is no escape from this, it seems. I could drive away in the car, but where would I go? And, what if she needed my help in the meantime? Patience and compassion, in greater depths than I usually have at any one moment, are called for at this time. I hope we don’t get QUARANTINED. I might go insane. JS

marathon days and crossword puzzles

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A marathon day yesterday, starting @ 3am, when I awoke, terrified I’d oversleep and not get on the road in time.

Left by 7am and drove to Portland when I was suddenly besieged by papers and notary things and faxes that all needed to be handled IMMEDIATELY and sent back to Dallas.

Then, I did 3 rolfing sessions, hopped in my car and wrestled my way through rush hour and back onto I-5 South for the 3hour drive back to Roseburg. Made it home about 9:30pm.

I was BEYOND exhausted when I crashed onto my pillow last night. Stef has the flu, however, so I’m feeling better than she does today. There are little piles of Kleenex everywhere and half-consumed cups of various kinds of tea sitting around.

Tea always strikes me as a hopeful thing – something unrequited, for me, although the Brits and the Canadians see it as a cure-all for everything, I think. I always expect to feel better than I do when I drink it; maybe my expectations are too high. I always think I should feel FABULOUS when I drink it, or, at least, good enough to want to stand on the hood of my car and sing BORN FREE out loud with my arms outstretched and flailing in the air. But I don’t, which always makes it a little disappointing.

It’s rather like how I feel about elections and crossword puzzles: so very HOPEFUL that now, by golly, NOW, we’re going to get something good done. And then, we don’t. And I’m bummed.

With crossword puzzles, I sit there staring at all those little squares, inhaling the woodsy smell of a freshly sharpened pencil, the tip of my tongue sticking out of the corner of my mouth, devouring all the easy ones quickly. Then, I can feel myself slowing down, wrestling with the hard ones, getting madder and madder at the smarty-pants know-it-alls who think these things up and I start looking for an address so I can mail a scathing letter that will slap them so hard they’ll think twice about putting words like “parsimonious” in a local newspaper crossword puzzle ever again – EVER! I fling the paper across the room in disgust and rage.

Yep, they’ll be hearing from me, alright, those creeps. And, just so they’ll know I mean business, I’ll be sure to sign it, Your Sworn Enemy, Jody Seay. That’ll show them. Bastards. Okay, end of rant. I have to go now. My tea is cold. JS