It’s time to save the world! We need a Charles Dickens, to show us what the census numbers really look like walking; we need a Thomas Paine to tell us just what might really work; we need a Rachel Carson to bring us to our senses; we need a Martin Luther, to bring us back to God.
We’ve had plenty of minor players. Who’s going to write the story that brings us fully back to center?
People who are great in their various professions, skills, and callings think profoundly but narrowly.
Only writers think of all the connections and the what-ifs; and some of you must wrap your imaginations around all our ideas, events, and characters, and write the words that will save the world.
Well, it is Purim. This is a fact I discovered on my Yahoo home page. Purim is number 8 at the moment in Yahoo's category called "Trending Now." Number 1 is Chile Earthquake. Number 2 is Tsunami. Purim is a Jewish festival, having to do with the Biblical book of Esther. That is my first random thought.
The second random thought is that nowadays I have to watch my typing more than what I used to. In days gone by, my fingers knew if they had made a typographical error. Nowadays I have to use my eyes. Why this is, I do not know. I began to notice this new deficiency after Scooter died. What the one has to do with the other, I cannot guess.
The third is that I have "1 Friend Online" ... and by that I mean on Multiply. If I were to flip over to my MySpace page I would likely find a friend or two online there also. And on Facebook it would not surprise me to find quite a few still online at this late hour (the time being 1:05 a.m. Eastern Standard).
Hmmm, I need a 4th Random Thought. This is not randomly thought about - I am constantly aware of this fact - I do not communicate so very well verbally anymore. I can often not think of a thing to say to anybody. My random thoughts are so empty (if empty is, indeed, the proper word) that I am at a loss for much beyond hello. This phenomena is also since my Scooter died.
Nevertheless: most people do not notice, because I have always been relatively quiet, socially. And furthermore, I am a relatively high-functioning airhead. At the moment my verbosity is being enhanced by 2 or 3 ounces of Mogen David Concord Wine (Kosher, alcohol 11% by volume ... oh my, I am such a lush!) Said wine is intended to put me to sleep, and make me quit thinking about Scott's funeral bill. And yet the thing that I had to write myself a note about, so that I will not FORGET is to tell the funeral home (either voluntarily, or only if they call again ... depending on which thing I later decide would be most appropriate) that SOMEBODY killed Scott with a motor vehicle and that when the police figure out WHO, their auto insurance should pay Scott's final expenses. (Did you know it costs over $4,000 to drive a hearse 50 miles to pick up a body and then deliver it to a donated grave?) The funeral was supposed to be billed to Scott's estate. I am not the executor of Scott's estate. I was Scott's estranged adoptive mother at the time of his death. And I am a compliant person. The medical examiner told me I had to tell them what to do with Scott's body. My pastor worked something out with a local funeral home. Scott's ex-girlfriend was going to handle his estate. She absconded or something. Sigh. If you want to know the truth, I was expecting a living prodigal son to come home and say, "Mom! I've missed you!" Death was never my honest expectation. Sigh.
Random thought 5: youngest son told me tonight to give $33 from him to church for his tithe this week. So I went to mybank.com to transfer $33 from his account to mine, and dang if mybank didn't insist this time that I fill out their "enhanced security questions."
And that is something I have ALWAYS been incompetent at doing. Online security questions always want to know your favorite this or that. I have never, to my knowledge, had favorite this or thats! So first I have to try to figure out what a reasonable answer would be, and then I have to worry forever that I will not remember what my answer was. So of course I have to write down my answers. And then, of course, I will need to remember where I put the list of answers. For which if I were truly to act in character I would make a file entitled "Answers to Security Questions," which, of course, defeats the purpose of security questions.
And I feel inept, when really I am not inept in the slightest; yet I wonder if anybody else on earth finds answering simple security questions challenging.
I recall at a job once-upon-a-time, my boss wanted to hand out plastic bracelets to put your office key on. She came to me, not telling me her true purpose, but only said, "Rani, what is your favorite color?" (Holy crap!!!! I DON'T KNOW!) "Favorite color for WHAT?" I said.
Back when security questions amounted to "What is your mother's maiden name," I was challenged even by that question. My mother's father died when she was 3. So she has gone by 2 last names, both of which I know about. And I have answered that question 2 different ways over the years.
And as to what color was my first car (this year's security question number 2 of 3) well, it had an exotic name (which I can remember, even 30 years after the fact) and of course it has a generic color name. I gave the generic color name as my reply to the bank's security question. Will I be sure to remember that someday (say in 2525) when my bank doubts my true identity? Probably not. I will have to answer, "Uh, it is either 'exotic-name' or 'plain vanilla name.' "
The only security question I knew the definitive answer to was "In what year did you meet your significant other?" At last! A question that requires knowledge of a FACT, not an opinion! I KNEW the answer to that one! (But then, so does everybody else who actually knows me, I think. Well, hopefully, those who would wish to steal my airheaded identity are people who do NOT know me.)
I should probably rephrase the airheaded descriptor. People do not generally consider me airheaded. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being airhead and 10 being geek, I am probably scored by those who know me as 11.
What I am, according to my husband, is, well, literal. (Is that a fault? I try to say what I mean, and I anticipate others doing so as well. Except for when I am trying to tease somewhat, because people like to tease somewhat, and even I can do so once a month or so. Well maybe it is only 4 times a year. But hey! I can make people laugh with my wee jokes. 4 times a year, anyway.)
Random thought #6: The Mogen David is working! I think that I shall go to sleep if I try again now.
Random thought #7: With only 2 friends online, it is not likely I will get much feedback from my random thoughts tonight. Oh well. It is Purim. There's an awful lot of grace in Purim, even though Esther never mentions God. Funny how that works, eh? Oh, BTW, the photo attached to this blog is Scooter, in his teens. When he was still my son. He left home to go to his homecoming dance when he was a junior in high school, and never did come home until he died, at the age of 31. Prodigals, beware.
Multiply made some changes while I've been on hiatus, and I've got a bit of a learning curve to climb, I see. Took me several minutes to figure out how to post a new blog!
Yesterday I sent status change requests to some of you, and I used Multiply's default verbage in the requests, and now I realize (thanks to Beatleboy) that doing that after being away so long may have made you think I don't consider you true friends anymore. Sorry! Please forgive! My heart and brain are a little disconnected and distracted because my son died suddenly yesterday.
I posted a link from my Facebook page, where all my "in real life" friends chat with me daily, over to a blog I wrote here last December. Which led to one of my "in real life" friends joining Multiply as my "friend" ... and I thought I ought to use the categories on Multiply a little more precisely so I can maybe sometimes filter who I post what to if I'm going to be introducing my "real life" friends to my blog site.
So those of you who are my Multiply buddies, but I've not had the honor of knowing you except through your writings (and mine), I sent you those change requests last night. And I am SO sorry for just sending them, without explanation; because you do still mean the world to me.
So please forgive me. In real life, and also in cyberspace, my head is perhaps a little weary and not firing on all cylinders right now.
I'll try to get back to blogging when I can ...
Thanks for your prayers and well-wishes. My second-youngest son was killed in a hit & run yesterday morning ... and apparently it was a homicide. I didn't know that yet last night. But none of this is anything I've had a dress rehearsal for.
If I don't sound as coherent as you're used to me being ... well, I guess that's why. Words fail me. But God's love, and the kind thoughts of friends, are holding me up. So thank you, everyone who knows, and prays, or sends a kind thought my way.
Just please don't think I care for you less because I asked you to be my "online buddy". You are still really my friend. It just means I've never seen you in person. That's all.
Multiply changed things while I've been away. For the better, probably, but I need to learn my way around again. So at first I could not find where to click to write a new blog. But as you can see, I found it.
I tidied up a couple of things -- made some old blogs visible again that earlier I had hidden.
I don't feel like writing. I feel like READING! And I am having a blast. Please don't anybody get your feelings hurt. I still ask God to bless all my Multiply friends every night when I say my prayers. That means YOU!
And I'll come back and play as soon as I get my fill of these books.
Many of you have recently read my blog entitled "All Over the Place". I should have been careful what I wished for. The other day, I got an email from a friend I know "in real life" asking me to connect to her on facebook. So I set up a profile there real quick this morning. Now, as today has progressed, my little facebook inbox is full of people I "know in real life" trying to connect to me.
And that scares the heck out of me.
Because in "real life" I am shy as can be and quiet as can be and un-noticeable as can be. And hardly ever does anybody know what I am thinking. Except maybe in a classroom type setting. I will raise my hand and point out a relevant fact, and then discussion will ensue, but I do not dominate that discussion. I just connect the dots, and the group moves along, and they don't really even notice that I sort of directed them. And that is comfortable for me.
Blogging and making friends on line has gotten to be really comfortable for me, too. In a way, most of my Multiply friends "know" me better than most of my "real-life" friends do.
But what will I do if my real life friends read my blogs and expect me to be as articulate in person as I can be in writing? I'll be a FAILURE, that's what!
Groups of people who all know each other and all know me ... well that is UN comfortable for me. Because, well, groups always want you to SAY something. And you have to be quick, and witty and I'm ... well ... SLOW. I think too dang deeply. I need to process and connect all the dots. I need to listen.
Sigh.
Well, I've got a facebook page now, and I suppose I gotta update the little blurb every day "Rani Kaye is ... (you're supposed to fill in the blank)." My 50+ year-old "real-life" friends are filling in those dang blanks!!!! Who knew?
Maybe in 2009 I'll become as comfortable with verbal communication as I am with blogging and commenting. When I was on Yahoo 360, I never ever ever commented ... I just read blogs. It wasn't until the Yahoo mass-exodus began that I quit lurking and contacted the people whose blogs I read so that I could come over here and not lose the writers I loved to read. Then one of those friends taught me to comment. (Okay, so I AM an idiot. I had to be taught to comment.) Now I do it all the time. Maybe someday I will even learn how to do it in real life.
... I'm not leaving Multiply, though, that's for sure. I'll just practice a little with facebook, and then maybe invite my facebook friends over here to see what a "real" blog site is like. Grin.
Okay, well I'll confess, I read part one. I did not continue after that. The writer's thesis seems to be that our online connections are not "real". Writer tells a story of 2 people who go into a coffee shop, fire up their computers, and chat with each other, neither of them realizing they are both physically in the same coffee shop while they chat.
Okay, I guess that's funny.
But crimeny! What's the big deal? Let me give some "historical perspective" here. I dig into genealogy. I also like to read "old" books. I know a bit about days gone by. People WROTE LETTERS.
ALL THE TIME.
That is all we are doing, kids. We are able to choose friends who don't live near us nowadays perhaps -- people we find interesting == people maybe who share our interests, or broaden our horizons. We know they are real people! We are NOT "isolated" (as the essay I read thinks we are) when we share ourselves with people through our CORRESPONDENCE.
Sheesh! Just because we have a "new" word: Blogging ... or Chatting ... or IMing --
Dude, it is CORRESPONDENCE! Humans have been communicating this way since before the printing press was even invented.
We just do it "in real time". And I LIKE that.
Deviating only slightly from this theme -- my husband made an interesting comment today. Talking about his sister when she first got married (20 years ago or so). He said of her and her bridegroom, "They didn't have time to psychoanalyze. They had a farm to run."
Okay, maybe that's deviating a lot from the theme. I see I'd better tell you why this latter comment seems connected to the beginning of my blog here today.
I think sometimes people gripe too much about the wrong things. And I think sometimes people "buy" the song-and-dance that we are all so isolated these days, sitting in our own little spaces, able to communicate with people almost everywhere. DANG! That just simply is NOT what I call "isolation".
My grandparents' grandparents were isolated. If they moved across the country to settle the Michigan wilderness, they maybe NEVER got to communicate in real time with the folks they left behind them EVER AGAIN.
Shoot, my sister even chatted with her son when he was in the Navy ON A SUBMARINE!
Gotta love this century! Quit psychoanalyzing!
Now for your laugh of the day: This is the link that first sent me to the website where I read the essay I have here blogged about. I got this one in an email today, and it is HILARIOUS!
Drat! Now this is EXACTLY why I won't let myself imagine in color: Because I ALWAYS get lost in the scenery if I do. I have absolutely no sense of time. I am "directionally challenged" in my home town. So what am I gonna do now? Just HAD TO gaze into that painting, didn't you, girl?
I'm in Rome. I was in the Sistine Chapel with a tour group. Why did I let Joyce talk me into coming on this tour? I NEVER go on tours. Joyce is so dang visual. Joyce is so into experiences. Joyce is so gregarious. Yeah, and Joyce is off with the rest of the tour, because she can see things and remain connected to reality. Not me, though. Oh no.
In the sixties they started calling this phenomena "tripping out." Mom and Dad just called it "day dreaming." "Earth to Rani," is what my sister Vickie would say. Yeah, well, earth (or the part of it I'm familiar with) just walked away and boarded the bus without me. Yeah, I don't just get lost in the scenery in my imagination. Oh no, I'm more lost than that. I am a wall flower. Absolutely forgettable. I am so quiet, nobody notices me.
Yeah, they probably said "last call" or something. But I was reading Michelangelo's mind. I was living in his world. So now how do I get back to my hotel before they all head back to America without me, for crying out loud?
"He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound, sound. Angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity. I said hey, hallelujah!" Paul Simon. I love Paul Simon. What would Paul Simon do? He travels all over creation, and he's a poet. THINK, Rani!
I need to ask somebody how to get back there. NO! I need to beg somebody to GUIDE me back there. Or I need a map. In English. Okay, now what am I going to do. Think! Think!
Hello ... does anyone here speak English? No. Well how about this one then, Parlez-vous Francais?
Yeah, like that will help if somebody says, "Oui, je parle francais."
When I was foster-mom to Than and his English wasn't so good, I tried to remember my French, because he'd told me he'd learned French in school in VietNam. But my schoolgirl French and his schoolboy French didn't sound the same, so THAT didn't work. I had wanted to impress upon him some concept, and I just could not find the English words he knew to do it.
Oh! I remember! Finally I found something along those lines in my Bible, and then copied the same chapter and verse out of HIS Vietnamese Bible. I don't remember if that worked, though.
But what the heck!
Bibles, Bibles, this is a CHAPEL for crying out loud. Do they have any Bibles here in Italian? More importantly than that, is there ANY dang verse in the Bible that says, "I am from America and I am lost. I do not even remember the name of my hotel, let alone the street it is on." Obviously THAT is not in the Bible. So pointing to a verse in an Italian Bible and using that to express myself is NOT going to help me out of this situation.
Yeah, well, quit thinking about that.
Universal language. Music is the universal language. Yeah, but not all songs are universal. What songs do I know in English that your average Roman is going to know in Italian? Think! Think!
Pavarotti is the only Italian singer I know. No, wait, Placido Domingo. And he sang a few in English: "Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm ..." SHELTER! Where is my shelter in this foreign land? And WHY isn't my group coming back in search of me?
"Stop and stare. I think I'm moving but I go nowhere ..." Now WHY am I hearing that song by One Republic in my head?
No, wait! That isn't a song in my head. That is the ring tone on my cell phone! Cell phone! Answer it!
My son! Back at home in the USA! Hi, honey; how ya doin'? ... Oh, ... Well did you look in the study? Yeah, under Dad's desk, in that little drawer thing. Say, listen, do you have your computer fired up? ... Good. Listen, honey, could you do a Google Earth for me? ... Yeah. See if you can find the Sistine Chapel in Rome. ... Okay, I'll wait. ... You've got it? Great! Now could you look on my desk next to the calendar for the copy of the itinerary of this tour I'm on and see what the name of my hotel is supposed to be? ... You found it? Great! ... No, I don't need to know the name of it. Just do a Google map for me of the directions from the Sistine Chapel to that hotel, and then STAY on the phone and talk me back there. ... Yeah, I know. Just help me, okay? STOP laughing and start Googling. Thank you!
I got an email with the next Writer's Forum challenge just before I went to bed last night. It will have to be fiction, because I have no life experience of this challenge to draw upon. So I'm laying in bed last night trying to imagine myself in the situation required for the story.
My imagination is totally self-talk. My imagination is not even slightly visual. And so, the story I wrote in my head was all words. Had I been at the keyboard, I can type almost as fast as I can think, so the story would have appeared on my blog with the click of a mouse.
Today, I can remember what I wrote in my head last night. And I suppose it may have been a good enough story. But it is a story that I now am bored with.
I have until next Tuesday night to do a new one. Next time, I guess I'll imagine another scenario, but this time I will do so at my keyboard.
So I learned something about myself, anyway.
And sorry if it seems like I am "teasing" here. I did used to write fiction back in school. But I wrote it at the typewriter, and never worked at it for very long. I'd just type it out and hand it in and get my usual "A" and everybody would say how "creative" I am.
My creative writing teacher wrote in my yearbook, "To a girl who is creative to her very fingertips ... "
Well, apparently it is ONLY my fingertips. Because if I am not at the keyboard, I can "write" it in my head, but once I've written it, I don't want it any more. Unless it's poetry. Poetry I keep. Poetry is my soul. Fiction is just my imagination, which I do not actually employ in my day-to-day life unless it is to rehearse possibilities or to try to solve a problem.
But I do enjoy reading fiction. And I can see great value in fiction. Because with fiction you can hide in plain sight, and spotlight a truism without seeming to be doing so.
Stay tuned for the story, I guess.
But I'm not going to think about it again until I feel inclined to actually write it. Because in order to write it I will have to re-imagine. And I do not particularly enjoy imagining. I much prefer thinking, sorting, and looking for connections.
"My ideas are only as good as my ability to share them with somebody else." -- young female student of architecture on This Old House TV show (sorry, I was in the other room when I heard this, and I do not know her name)
When young, impressionable, hopelessly floundering but so danged intelligent
