I’m thinking of that song from “West Side Story.”
I’ve often felt out of place, out of time — born too late or too early. I was a little too young to really be a “beatnik” and too old to be a “hippie.” I’m too old to be a Boomer and too young to be a Solid Senior. I’m neither theist nor atheist, neither New Ager nor Old Fart. I’ve always have to keep struggling to keep from falling between life’s cracks, to find a place of my own. When armed with time, energy, and complete autonomy, I can be pretty successful at grabbing my piece of the action. But the care of a parent who has lived her life self-absorbed, oblivious to the world around her and in denial of the world inside her is making dangerous dents in that armor.
And so I much appreciate the comments left yesterday by my ol’ blogpals Allan, Mike, and Ray. And the emails from Steve James (the dad of Blog Sister and Apprentice Crone Andrea James) and from Tom Shugart and Frank Paynter.
Notice anything signficant about the names of those who have offered encouragement? Yup, all male. I don’t know what that ultimately means, but it’s interesting, isn’t it?? (I have to think on that some more.)
Yes, I miss writing here and reading out there, and so I am finding my way back, but not to the same place I was before.
I’m working on revising my blogroll. And working on some additional pages to this site.
I’m working on re-creating my circle of friends, here, there, everywhere.
My women friends in this painfully real world are my lifelines. While they question the wisdom of my choice to give up what was my life in order to take care of my mother (not one of them who had that choice to make made the one I have), they draw me out, get me out, give me reasons to get myself out of this literally dark apartment. Solstice gatherings with two different groups of women friends stirred what has been languishing in the cauldron’s depths.
Saturday I leave my mother home alone to go out and visit my grandson. That will be my real holiday celebration. And my son-in-law and I are going to see Lord of the Rings, since my daughter doesn’t want to leave the baby, expecially since he just had ear tubes put in three days ago.
So, thank you, guys, for being here. These days I have no men friends in my Real World — out of circumstance, not choice. And I’ve always had male friends to kid around with, bust chops with. Thanks for reminding me that you’re still close by and ready to rock.
It’s going to be a slow resurrection for me, but I’m working on it. Working on it all. Getting geared up for a second wind. Hold onto your hats.
MEANWHILE, if anyone has a suggestion about why I can save and rebuild my MT posts here from my laptop but can’t from my other computer (even though both are XP), I’d appreciate your leaving a comment here. My big Dell just leaves me stuck on the “Rebuilding new entry” message. It gets saved but it doesn’t appear on my blog. I have to connect my laptop to my modem and then I can call up my blog and rebuild it from there so that the new entry appears. (Which is what I have to do right now. ) I don’t have a clue. Anyone??
Kalilily Time
Just an old lady talking to herself
Hi Elaine, I was so busy racing around in non-blogworld the days before Christmas that I didn’t see your Dec. 23 entry until today. Glad some of your male blog friends were less stressed out. I’m glad you’re back and wish I had brilliant advice about your blogware. You can see a list of your past posts at http://feedster.com/drill.php?id=6137 if that helps. Some bloggers have been able to reconstruct after a hard-disc crash using Feedster’s XML cache, but your RSS seems to be excerpt-only rather than full text. Hugs!
Oh yes, Betsy! I know that you posted that I seem to be missing. And yes, I imagine that lots of the females have been totally absorbed by the frenetic pace of the holidays. I sure can understand that. I remember what that was like. 🙁
Sexist :).
Nah… I’m also working on getting up a head of steam and a second wind, Elaine; let’s just do it together. All the usual suspects are still out there, including so many I’ve also not blogrolled (Betsy, Yule and several others being burning omissions).
But, what the hell, we’re works in progress… To paraphrase an old friend of mine, “Not complete yet, but we’re getting there…” 🙂
“Some bloggers have been able to reconstruct after a hard-disc crash using Feedster’s XML cache, but your RSS seems to be excerpt-only rather than full text.”
Recovery isn’t the issue. For some reason, when posting from her desktop, the process hangs. When posting from her laptop, things save/rebuild/publish properly.
Elaine, it’s nice to see you back. I have been worried about you, but felt that perhaps I would be intruding by writing, since I am a fairly recent reader of your blog.
About your rebuild problem … I wonder if it has to do with either different versions of Explorer, or whatever browser you use (or some settings in them), or, if you happen to have a firewall installed, such as Zone Alram, with settings on the firewall. I have had similar problems on my different computers running XP … and traced the source of the problem to my firewall settings concerning popup windows…
I am not sure this will help … but I thought I’ll share it with you.
Hooray! Welcome back. This is a great post. As you might imagine, the generational references spoke directly to me, inspiring a blog post. Are you still having problems getting through? If so, let me know, and I’ll email it to you. I give you some acknowledgement in this post, so I’d like you to see it.
I’m wrestling with the same problems you are about blogging interfering with the rest of my life, but I really don’t want to give it up. I’m hoping that you don’t either. One solution I’m looking at is to devote two periods per week to blogging–once in the middle, and once during the weekend–and to give it short shrift the rest of the time. Whether or not this experiment is feasible remains to be seen, but I’ll keep you posted.
Welcome back Elaine. You’ve been missed.
I post from multiple computers to MT and haven’t experienced the problem you described, but will go back this evening and re-read what the problem you’re having is. Maybe I can help figure it out.
You might also look at w.bloggar as a posting tool for ease of use. http://www.wbloggar.com. I use it often for posting and have generally found it far friendlier to work with that the raw web-based MT posting. I use it from multiple computers as well.
Again, welcome back!
It must have something to do with a firewall setting. I’ve gone ine and tried customizing the settings, but it doesn’t seem to help.
Hi! Just wanted to drop by and wish you a happy and hopefully relatively relaxing holiday.
I know what you mean about taking care of an older parent. I see my own mother getting frustrated with taking care of my grandmother who is too stubborn to admit a wrong or voice a need and I get anxious even thinking that I will have to do the same thing in the future.
Hi Elaine, and welcome back!
Hello, my dear, dear sister friend; I have been away also and was afraid to look at your blog for fear you might have been upset with me for ignoring you. I had to step away for awhile and remember how to breathe pure air, the Muse’s Ether — not the charged particles streaming from my computer monitor. It didn’t take too long (although longer than I imagined it would) before I began again to have Original Thoughts.
And when I read that you went out ballroom dancing, my heart started singing with joy and my eyes filled with tears. I am so glad you have decided to rediscover yourself through the dents in the armour. You are a truly wondrous woman to behold.
We have a new year to contend with. A political year. A presidential campaign to champion; a president to chomp on. We need to get down in the dirt and hammer all those dents out of our armour because this is going to be a bloody battle and we will need shining shields for protection.
Er…don’t suppose you’d want one of my bumper stickers to put up on your desk, wouldja?
It’s nasty but cute; a Texas-style wrangling that reminds me of the 60’s mentality.