About Me

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Since 1984, my light commentary, Marginal Considerations, has been a feature of Weekend Radio. Moving into the 21st century (yeah, I know - a decade late and more than a dollar short), it may be time to explore the format known as "the blog." (Still on the radio, BTW.) I am the author of A Natural History of Socks, illustrated by the late Eric May, You May Already Be a Winner (and other marginal considerations) and The Nonexistence of Rutabagas, plus maybe 1K features, essays, book and arts reviews in newspapers and magazines nearly everywhere, except perhaps Kansas. I live on Lake Erie one city to the west of Cleveland with too many musical instruments, several large plants and no cats. My front door is purple. I collect dust, take up space and burn fossil fuel. I kayak, knit, hike, sing, canoe, write choral music and play hammered dulcimer, but not all at the same time. I read too much and don't write enough, but what's new?

Thursday, April 28, 2011

more signage

From the east side of town, a friend reports an establishment advertising "wood burning pizzas." And I recall a restaurant in Rocky River with "No shoes. No shirt. No tank top. No service" emphatically posted at the door. I am sure that I was served there any number of times when I was not wearing a tank top . . . 'tis a puzzlement.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Say what?

A few days ago I went to the UPS store to ship a package. While standing around waiting for the clerk to figure out what size box he needed, I read the list of services offered, posted high on the wall opposite the counter like a fast food menu. The options beneath “packaging services” included “crating” and “cartonizing.” Cartonizing – so maybe that’s what was taking the kid so long; he was looking for a box . . .

At my Y there is a sign by the drinking fountain that reads, “Please do not spit in the water fountain.” (No, I am not making this up.) The assumption here is that someone who would spit in a drinking fountain can read. I think that’s a pretty big leap. On the bulletin board in the hallway are listed “upcoming events.” As opposed to what? Downcoming events? Why not just “coming events?”

Among my favorite repetitive redundancies, a category of language abuse dear to my heart, is “free gift.” Well, yeah  . . .  if you had to pay for it, it wouldn’t be a gift. Another big DUH is “supplies are limited.” Of course they are. We live in a finite world, people.

Turning to entertainment, I remember when an R in a TV listing let you know that the episode was a rerun. Now, we assume the program’s been aired before unless there’s an N there. As for on-air promotion, why do the networks trumpet a coming show as “all-new”? Next week! All-new NCIS! I find this totally bizarre. Are they implying that they sometimes air a “part-new” episode? Maybe they occasionally rewrite just half the script and hope people won’t notice.

Among my favorite signs is one I saw on the door of a shop in Aukland, New Zealand: “No children without parents.” Eh? In the west of  Ireland, I spotted a notice stating, “Opening hours: 10-5 daily, except when not.” I love that one. But the most succinct and best-ever business sign I’ve seen was right here in my own neighborhood, a hand-lettered signboard propped in front of a near-by tavern - “Open ‘til closed.” I’m so glad they clarified that.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

My beautiful friend calls

My beautiful friend calls late in the evening. Her voice tells me from the first word that something is wrong. Her father died. This passing is a relief. He's been very ill for some time. Still, even when it's expected, even when death puts suffering to rest, it upends us.

When it is a parent who dies, the very earth shifts and you no longer stand where you were. The death of a parent irrevocably alters a key part of who you are, of who you have been your entire life. Until now. Whether you register it consciously or not, you know this to be a marker. You know this to be the end of yet another phase of your life. And you grieve that loss as well.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Fifty-two do-overs

Monday - life's start-again day. Whether you've trashed your house or crashed your diet over the weekend, stayed out too late, maybe drank one more glass of wine than you meant to - whatever - when Monday comes around you get back on track. Mondays are like having a New Year's Day once a week.

Except for the absolute minimum required to keep body and soul together, I did nothing last week but work on a music project, letting all else fall down around my ears. I finished the score, wrestling as always with the music-writing software, printed it out and mailed it off Saturday. I plowed through Sunday, which often starts too early and usually gets me home around time to collapse and watch "60 Minutes." Yesterday, Monday, I set about what my friend Karen terms "exerting control over my domestic environment."

The underwear alarm went off so I really had to do laundry. I seem to have a lot of laundry. I can't decide if this means I'm a very clean person or a very grubby one. I do know that every time I'm just about done with the laundry I do something rash - like get out a clean towel or change my socks - and before I even get the last load of the day folded and put away, I already have the beginnings of the next pile of laundry. It makes me think of that sour dough starter some people use to make bread; they always save a bit to start the next batch.

Cleaning up the rest of the house was - still is - a bit like mucking out the Aegean stables. The Squalor Alert Level had been hovering around orange, threatening to escalate to red in some corners of the house. I'm progressing toward yellow, aiming to bring it down around green by tomorrow . . . well, maybe Thursday. There's no hope of ever reaching the all-clear blue zone. I may be a nut case, but I'm a realistic one. My office always looks as if somebody has picked it up and shaken it.

I still haven't washed the kitchen floor or cleaned the stove, and I have a bunch of recycling to drop off, but I seem to have done enough to keep the Health Department (or the TSA) from showing up at my door. At least for now, I can live with that.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Falling into a book

I have fallen in love again. Last week it was a tree, a modest young river birch with curls of creamy bark. I visited it at least once a day, took photos of it, watched it in the rain. This week, or at least today, it is a book, though sometimes it is music or the rainbows on my wall. (I am easily amused.)
One week driving back and forth to the other side of town for a school residency, it was a song by the Wailin' Jennies. I played the track, singing along to add an additional harmony that is, to my ear, absolutely essential, then pushed the 'back' button on the CD player to do it over again. For ten 40" trips between home and school, I lived in that song.
Now, as I said, it is a book,  The Memory Palace, by Mira Bartok. A memoir of life as the daughter of a schizophrenic, it is sometimes dark but never dreary, and written in such luminous language that I cannot stop reading it. I read last night until I fell asleep and picked it up again when I woke, still in my pajamas when a friend stops at 10am. I am living in this book instead of writing or cleaning or seeing to the laundry or other chores. I cannot wait to finish this book and I never want it to end. So it goes.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Walking on water

Forget that lion and lamb stuff - this March flew in like a puddle-loving duck and toddled away in weather only a penguin could love. Now April, my yard is again afloat and falling temps tonight could lay a thin lid of ice on my pond. Oh - and then we are expecting rain every day for the rest of the week.
Besides the pond, which is supposed to be there, I have a great lake wannabe under the mulberry tree and a growing body of muddy water near the patio behind the garage. I'm expecting migrating geese to land any time now. My plan is to declare my back garden a wetlands and apply for a Federal grant. After that, all I need is signage.
Shopping for a pontoon boat,
Jancy

Friday, April 1, 2011

The Question Was, Where Have You Been?

New York, Chicago, Columbus, Ohio
dozens of places that seem
like a good idea at the time.

well, that's the beginning of an old answer (to read the whole poem, click on http://www.switched-ongutenberg.org/archive/vol5no1/where.htm)

As for more recently, the answer is here, there and Puerto Rico. (More on that later.) Not a post to be seen since the first of the year, and one quarter of the year gone.
Resolving on this first of April to do better, JanC