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Showing posts from January, 2011

What do we say?

Well, in an odd flux of things, January has started out as a bad month.  I do mean bad.  Oddly, it is usually February that gets puts on notice.  This year January is setting a very bad precedent for what is to come.  In the past three weeks bad news has been spilling out of the water tap.  An abbreviated view is: one friend had a blood clot in her brain and all that that entails, one lost her mother, one's grandfather has brain cancer, one lost her father, and one husband of a college roommate lost his legs to an IED.  I'm certain I forgot something in there . . . but you get the drift.  News of death and dying is easier to respond to because we maneuver it our entire lives.  In contrast, when an old friend says her husband has lost his legs you are left dumb founded and speechless.  You don't know what to say.  You are left feeling helpless.  You don't know what to do.  Do you send flowers? Do you send food?  Do you s...

Karma, round two.

Thursday . . . a day filled with intense drama television of the Bones, CSI, Grey's Anatomy , and Private Practice kind.  And, of course, The Big Bang Theory .  I'll save you the my ruckus humor of laughing out loud at TBBT.  Instead, how about we revisit my fucked up karma. Way back when the sun was hot and bright (July, I think) I ran into a former something-or-the-other on the LIE.  I was filling out paperwork at Old Westbury and heading back into my beloved 'hood.  Well, he was sitting with his now wife in his shiny car, and as we paused next to one another he clutched his chest while his eyes bugged out at me.  My mouth came open, and I felt my heart stop for a moment . . . maybe more.  He sped away, and I can only imagine what the conversation was as he tried to explain his response to his Mrs.  Me . . . I'm single.  I didn't have to explain it to anyone but me. Well . . . Now that we are deep into the season of snow, about six mo...

Brakes

Man, sometimes life just keeps on kicking. Today, after battling roads of snow and rain, I made it to my training for a new course...on the way home I stopped for oil and air in a tire. Then...then I find out I need brakes. The hits just keep on coming. So, the mechanic is being kind--as he's seen me get gas here weekly--and not charging labor. Still, 300+ on brakes is a bill I can ill afford these days. Payday isn't for a month so I'll be sweating it far more than I am comfortable with. Crap. It always gets me that just when the wrinkles start to unfold, life calms, something stops you (or in this case me) in your tracks. I teach more than a full time load, yet adjunct pay keeps me at about a third of a full time salary. Paying the rent and other bills is usually doable, but brakes are another expense to test you. In an economy like this mechanics will always have jobs because a car without brakes is like a writer without a pen. Okay, a car is more lethal than a car...but ...