I woke up this morning feeling very off-balance. It's a little bit like dizziness, only it seems to be affecting my perception more than my actual sensation of balance. When I opened my eyes and sat up to kiss Neil, everything looked like it was whirling. This has gradually been easing up for most of the day, but I'm still not feeling entirely steady. Neil says it has something to do with pressure changes in the fluid in your brain. Or something to that effect. And that it's normal once in awhile. This hasn't happened to me in a long time. But every other time it has, it's never outlasted a good night's sleep.
It's still weird.
I've been getting into the Christmas/Yule spirit lately. Yesterday, Neil and I bought lights and put them up. And then I made some weird greeting cards out of construction paper. Almost every year, I've sent cards with some random surrealist artsy theme (and nothing to do with any particular holiday, religious or secular), but with boxes of greeting cards well out of the range of my budget, I figured construction paper was the only way to go. Today, I strung a bunch of Kix cereal onto some thread from a cheap sewing kit, and we'll hang that someplace as some sort of festive garland-type thing.
I know, it's kind of dorky, but I LIKE being festive.
My grandmother called this morning and told me this story...
Once upon a time, when she was a little girl (she always starts her stories that way), her family didn't have any money to have a "real" Christmas. They were a dirt-poor farm family in Minnesota during the Depression. They had no Christmas tree. It was far too expensive to buy one, and they rented the farmland their property was on, so they couldn't cut down a tree. So, the mother, bound and determined to give her kids a nice Christmas, got a big pail and filled it with sand. Into this, she stuck their broom handle, which she decorated with little paper things and so forth. And that was their Christmas tree. The kids were apparently young enough so that they thought it was great fun, not really seeing much of a difference between a tree and a broom handle.
I greatly admire the purity with which young children perceive the world. I repeated the story to Neil, who pronounced it, "incredibly backwoods, but touching." Yeah, definitely.
Anyway, I figure we're doing better than that. We've got lights, and cards, and Kix, and I may even be able to give a very, very few people some presents. I like to give presents when I can. Not just in December, but anytime.
People keep asking me what I want for Christmas. I don't know quite how to answer that... I suppose I could use a few good books, but I've always got a library card. I asked my grandmother for a small coffeemaker because I'm the only one who drinks decaf and I hate getting in the way of the caffeine fiends around here. But really, all I want is to be with loved ones, for all of us to be relatively healthy, to have enough food to satisfy us, and to have a decent day. That's all.
A short eulogy...
I was recently informed that a well-known man from my hometown died this week. He was a grumpy old man by the name of Gene, a local newspaper columnist. He was never my favorite person in the world; he made it particularly hard for people to really like him. And a good number of his articles about local theater and so forth were kind of rude, and I only liked them sometimes. But I did have some real respect for the man. This is why:
Once, David and I went to Gene's apartment so that David could use Gene's computer. Gene apparently forgot that David had a key to the place, and David went over to check his email while Gene was at work. And I came along for something to do. Well, when David and I left to go have lunch, I accidentally left my journal on a desk or an end table or something.
The next morning, Gene called David where he worked, as a barista at Java Joe's. I don't know the content of that conversation. I only came onto the scene when David, in Java Joe's t'shirt and black apron, trotted over to the table where I was having coffee with my friends, dropped Gene's apartment keys on the table, and told me to go retrieve my notebook.
"You know that notebook you're missing?" David asked. "Well, Gene just called. He says you're a very good writer. He called from work, so you'll have time to go over there and get it and then bring my keys back."
I ran over to Gene's apartment, scrambled up the stairs, unlocked the door (this took considerably longer than I would have liked), dashed in, grabbed my journal, and ran back out.
Once I got back to the coffeehouse, I gave David back his keys and peeked hesitantly into my journal, wondering what, exactly, Gene had read.
Well, Gene had left a freaking BOOKMARK in it. So, I knew exactly what he'd read.
Now, Gene didn't know me a bit, but he DID know quite a number of the people I wrote about. I was constantly people-watching and taking notes. I was constantly writing down some of the most appalling gossip, the rudest opinions, the deepest heartfelt feelings, etc...
I was terrified. I mean, this was a man who made his living writing for the freaking newspaper. And I didn't suppose he had any reason NOT to mention some of the things I'd written. I mean, hell, some of the things were about friends of his. The man knew everybody in town, and why NOT tell them what I thought about them?
...But, to the best of my knowledge, Gene never said a thing. Not one word. Apparently, he never even told David what I'd written about him. And even once he knew perfectly well who I was, and could put a face to the journal entries, he never said a thing to me, just gave me a grumpy -- but somehow knowing -- look.
That particular journal, named Diane, is still around, and, incredibly, it still has blank pages in it. I started it a month or two before Gene read it, and it's now seven and a half years later. But to this day, Gene remains one of only about three people who have actually seen inside the covers of that notebook.
I always felt I owed him for keeping his mouth shut. Most of the rest of the time, he had no problem saying whatever came into his mind at the moment. He was, indeed, an old grump. He spent plenty of time making disparaging comments about my friends and me. But he did right by me when he really had no reason to. For that, I respected him.
Rest in peace, grumpy old man. And by the way, thanks. Really.
The word "eulogy" comes from the Greek. It literally means "good word." I like that.
Speaking of words, I have found two that don't follow that dumb "i before e" rule. They are: "weird" and "caffeine."
Those two words are awfully good ones. Law-breaking words.
I'm a little bit bored. I think I'll go make more cards or something...
~Helena*