Golden Saucers: whisking silence

Golden Saucers: whisking silence

On the fuzzy periphery of a weekday afternoon, a phone rings but once a day. It’s mom calling from the driveway who “could use some help” with the groceries. Occasionally a text will jolt the stillness with a zap back to where good friends are studying, interning, teaching, traveling, wedding, birthing, drinking, laughing, fighting, earning, living for . . .

the crystal-tinkling clarity of some unadulterated sound.

Save for the seldom awakening of the grad-gift phone, my sounds these days are frequently cupped silence, filled with the memory of amniotic fluidity. When the sun rays reach into my childhood window and are particularly beckoning with their gentle invitation to join the world, I drive to a cabin once filled with second cousins and aunts and toddlers spilling out every straining window screen to the patio undergrowth of frog racing, fireflying, citronella wafting, and boat motors whining for just 10 more minutes, please, in the water.

The water is calm. My phone has no bars, and I, this time, am silently alone. Floating. Rocking. Irrevocably lulled.

My brain, too, is silent, the disquiet of the neuron map for now stowed away, washed ashore to make way for the expansive emptiness of the 3:00 sky.

Allow a cloud-flood through the retinas, through to the brain. In the sun-washed silence, absence, four tablespoons of softened butter must be what a baby feels when it first surmises the sky.

Let the brain stem keep inching back till the chin passes above the horizon line of trees, toes disappear, no cheating, feel the heavy cranium stretch back, ahh, all the way.

Clouds, the silent movie that speaks with a breath of originality, of change, whisk and scramble with each blink.

In a lull of blinking silence, I rediscovered clouds.

Top 10 OxyContin Pills

This week, I traded my wisdom teeth for OxyContin pills of wisdom.

OxyContin #1: Now maybe oral surgery is on the lower end of “grave” as far as surgeries go, but it seems there really should be some sort of code against anesthetizing people in a tiny fourth-floor business suite.

OxyContin #2: The last thing cringers to all things vein-related want to hear is their surgeon comparing the quest for the perfect IV vein to a fishing expedition. “Hmm. We might have to move upstream to find a good one, but let’s see if we can’t find us a big one here first.”

OxyContin #3: More wise words from the Dr. Wisdom Fisher: “If after the surgery you find when you try to drink water it comes straight through your nose, well, then we’ll know we’ve got something to fix.”

Thanks for testing bodily hydraulics before the patient leaves the building.

OxyContin #4: With oral surgery there is also the risk of damaging a delicate nerve, barely a blip on the X-ray, that runs below the gums through the lower lip. Numbness usually goes away after three hours, but to a patient on emotion-inducing pain meds, those three hours with a numb hippo lip is life-devastating, filled with premonitions of wearing bibs in restaurants and slurping gruel like the Beast.

Be thankful for that little nerve.

OxyContin #5: Nerve damage or no, wisdom tooth extraction requires the surgeon to crank the jaw open so much so that even opening it to fit a spoon in and out requires effort equal to removing the Sword from the Stone. Unfortunately the only way around this utensil challenge is licking applesauce straight from the jar. You can imagine the mess with the added handicap of a numb lip.

OxyContin #6: You know you have some high commodity pain prescriptions after the pharmacist tries to give you “Marissa Hoover’s” measly antibiotics and your demand for your identity and its rightful narcotics creates a Spanish Inquisition into who the true Jessica Hoover is and why she needs five narcotics prescriptions from the neighborhood Walgreen’s. Foul play afoot, Marissa Hoover. I’m on to you.

OxyContin #7: And you can’t trust anybody. Your mother, for your safety and addiction prevention, will purposely “hide” the pill bottles while she is gone for the day, leaving you high and, well, not high, but dry, and in pain.

OxyContin #8: When a mid-day storm blows through causing a tree to fall in one’s backyard, thereby uprooting two smaller trees, which smash the dog fence and a good portion of the roof, all just one branch shy of an OxyContin-induced slumberer, good luck (one) waking up and (two) convincing your family you really aren’t hallucinating . . . this time.

OxyContin #9: Don’t social network while under the influence. While you may not have the strength to sit at a desk and use a computer, here’s when the “convenience” of the mobile web on your phone betrays you.

OxyContin #10: Bed-ridden and comatose on pain meds is hardly an excuse for lack of cardiac exercise. The old ticker gets plenty of cardio pumping from heart-racing recurring nightmares of being trapped in a mahogany mansion hiding for your life from Cyclops sea creatures in basement wardrobes while, with the strike of each hour, a new army of villains, in progressive historical time periods, flood the spiraling staircases raging war curses while they hunt you. It’s like playing “Jumanji” amid clash of “Narnia” (all 7) and “Night at the Museum” (1 & 2) in every battle for Middle Earth.

Missed item this week: A right mind?

Peace out Brussels sprouts.

Top 10 Bird Droppings

Bird Dropping #1: You know the fates and birds are aligned together to malign suburban walking attempts when one is pooped upon whilst strolling to the ballpark.

Bird Dropping #2: Always, always, always greet people you know, regardless of the likelihood of them remembering you from six years ago. The minute you don't, you will see them haunting the grocery store crosswalk the next day, and you are faced with the exact same previous day’s awkward (lack of) interaction precedent.

Bird Dropping #3: Upon returning home, get used to "Hey [insert name of younger high school sibling here]." Or, "So you're the younger one, right?" Or, "Have you thought about colleges yet?"

Bird Dropping #4: How long does it take a college student to shake off the 3 a.m. bed time? At least a month and still counting.

Bird Dropping #5: From the other end of the clock, how long is it permissible for a college graduate to repeatedly sleep in until noon? Two weeks ago, wasting an entire half of a day was detestable, so I enacted a calibration plan, shaving off 30 minutes of sleep each week. We’re to 10:30 a.m. at Week 4.

Bird Dropping #6: Buildings change. Businesses go in and out of existence. Yes. But when is it ever OK for a private warehouse aquarium to morph into a pool and spa?

Bird Dropping #7: If anyone is ever in doubt of Knoxville’s literacy rate, go to McKay’s Used Books any hour of any day and ponder literacy whilst circling the parking lot for eons waiting for a spot. Then go inside to meet Knoxville’s finest local literates.

Bird Dropping #8: Thanks to thunderstorms that pop up out of literally nowhere, one’s afternoon walks quite frequently turn into afternoon sprints with the added inconvenience of emitting convincing “oh my house is just around the corner” pants to strangers who offer rides home.

Bird Dropping #9: When one is lucky enough to get through an entire walk thunder-free, lo and behold pick up the pace when the ice cream truck and its freaky clown music creeps along behind you or heads you off at the crossroads. So this is what it feels like being on the run from the child snatcher in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

Bird Dropping #10: After finally having re-arranged one's room in every geometric configuration possible, the realization sets in that a) social life has significantly declined, and b) furthering individual exploration and independence has also declined. Both of which exist because of c) lack of travel and general adventure. Therefore, d) The Stagnated Self Crisis Cycle (Theorem S^2 = C^2):
--Frustration: A quick facebook perusal reveals there are more people than fingers on your hand who are doing way more interesting things with their summers than you are.
--Aggression: Rant to the dog in self pity and bitterness about a boring existence.
--Frenetic Angst: Feverishly map out possible excursions for every continent, including Antarctica.
--Repression: Cool down with sorting four years’ worth of computer files.

We haven’t quite achieved the “Acceptance” phase yet.


‘Most Missed’ this week: Rome Wal-Mart entertainment

Peace out Brussels sprouts.