Monday, January 30, 2006

A verbis a verbera/acta non verba


Achill Island
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
My living room is really quite a blackhole: cluttered with half-opened art supplies, empty glasses lined with dried red wine and root beer, books in stacks, a dead christmas tree, a trying-to-grow pot of paperwhites and me. My taxes have been e-filed. My grad school applications have been sent. I am wearing the new fleece. I worked three days and then a night shift. I saw Casanova and had tom yung koong. I ate a macrobiotic dinner last night with Karen Ma. I wash dishes and have baths. I am more than midway through book two of the Patrick O'Brien books. I realize every day that I have some very high quality friends and other very good half-friends, meaning they are anywhere from one quarter- to one half-good at actually being my friend. This quality issue has nothing to do with frequency of contact but rather other factors. There are those and then there are people we might not talk to in ten years (Karen Ma) and then when we see them we are home again, easy peasy. I worry every day that my very good friends are floating away from me on the tide of our own mutual negligence when it comes to keeping tabs. I bought all these art supplies in an attempt to pull them back against that tide by sending them little thank you notes expressing how much I value them. When I have tried to sit and make something, I accomplish little.
This weekend someone asked me what my bedroom looked like and I said it's my bed and nothing else, and this is true (Eric said this was very Leonard Cohen-y). Some of you may have known me for my previous rooms and my tendency to actually adorn them with remnants and signifiers of my life, and I liked that. I can still do that but it seems that now I am grown, whatever that means. Now I am without the frequent lightning strike of inspiration and
I wonder how much of this is the fault of my work or other things. For example, the other day I spent two hours online researching the approximate cost of a windbeaten cottage on the northwest coast of Ireland where I might one day retreat during winters (for the storms) to write. And yet I could have spent those two hours writing right here, right now and then I wouldnt think so little of myself. Problem solved! Actions not words.

Oh but you say, come now, you sound perfectly depressed, nurse!

I don't really think I am. I think I am tired and that I need to work more diligently at my calligraphy (I bought a kit with the other stuff at the art store) and try to keep my house uncluttered so I can find an available work space when I feel a lightning strike coming on.

That, and more wine, less talk.

Monday, January 16, 2006

When the wind blows

wish I had that fleece
(mossy mossy teeth)
the brown one, I think the color is Carob
(numb nasopharynx)
half dizzy, mostly cold
(Emergen-C, you're my only hope. Emergen-C, you're my only hope)
Cleaning rangetops with Clorox wipes
(banana tree moving compliantly, sounds like a man in the bushes)
About to make omelette, only to abandon the endeavor
(in the name of love, in the name of love)
Put on hard contacts and I can see my face
(consider the essay sent, consider new alarm clock purchase)
wonder about people and their rationales
(in the name of love, what more in the name of love)
today with two other nurses deconstructed the near dreadlock
of my patient who meanwhile grinned and mouthed words of contentedness
while we all fussed above her
(she is ten but just learning to use her vocal chords)
(there was lots of grape scented conditioner)
I watched as another patient's mother read her the Hungry Caterpillar
(my patient has no mother but has a doting biker daddy)
and couldnt look away.
Went up to see two previous patients on another floor
(one watched the Daily Show with me and showed me his knitting and played me the Star Wars theme on a recorder)
the other giggled in his crib while I pretended to eat his foot like corn on the cob
(he cycled his legs, kicked his mylar Elmo balloon for sport when he was in the ICU)
This could have been a novel
This could have been a short story

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Ativan plus Supershuttle = Vancouver


Like IV fluid, but for mouths
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
I snowed myself with Ativan yesterday AM prior to departure. Folks, I actually slept on a plane for two and a half hours. I don't remember hearing the engines idle down on descent, nor the captain announcing Mt St Helen's on the right nor the beverage service or the snoring of the snowboarders in the row ahead of me. I believe I have found my ideal dose friends, and it is two point five mgs of lorazepam (my Rx is for 0.5).
Pops and Gaga picked me up in the newest Lebomobile - a 1990 blue-grey Jetta diesel complete with ipod jack!
Gaga (in Gorton's-fisherman-yellow rainwear) welcomed me and then commenced discussion of the H5N1 virus and it's presence in Southeast Asia as pertains to my sister's imminent departure to said region. Then we had hot and sour soup, dry fried green beans, braised tofu and later, over the Daily Show, a mild Chianti. Oh, and my sister didnt know I was coming so that was a good surprise.

For your convenience, I found a painting of hot and sour soup. It might actually be from the author of the famed Everybody (active verb) series (e.g. Everybody Poops, etc), not sure.
the way in which the artist has plumbed the tofu-rich depths of the broth is admirable.

Yippy-yi-yay, yippy-i-o-oh


marlborotowleroad
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
You've probably seen this one already. Here it is again!

Friday, January 06, 2006

A horse. Working like a.

I am in the middle of my first night shift right now. I have two sleeping children in the rooms to my right. Since before Christmas, I've been working a foolish schedule. I made it myself and have only me to blame. I worked 5 12-hrs straight through over Christmas, had one day off, had two on, two off, then three on. Then this morning I slept in until noon. I got a phone call in the middle of omelette-making asking if I could come in for a night shift as they were short. I said yes and promptly swallowed a benadryl and climbed back into bed. O whoa is me, sitting at the tail end of the unit. It's dark and kinda lonely.
How was your new year's? Mildly disappointing but expectedly so? I went to my cousins' house. Everyone but me was on pills. I got lots of massages but early in the night realized I would have to abandon my plan to make out with somebody on such day.

I made something out of artichokes last night. My salmon on Monday was white.
I watched Labyrinth and also Jiminy Glick in La La Wood.

Dance magic dance.
Slap that baby, make it pee!