August 2012

I hate to admit this but I start feeling a little achy in my shoulders when there’s rain on the way. I know that makes me sound incredibly old, and at 44 I don’t think my warranty has expired yet, but nevertheless, when it’s looking like it’s going to rain I can feel it in my bones. Earl says it’s because I try to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. He could be right. He almost always is.

For those reading this from the Central New York region, there’s rain on the way. At least I’m not like Mrs. Ziffel, claiming that lumbago means we need to plant corn this year.

My sister and I always knew when dad wasn’t happy with us. He never showed his anger by yelling or raving or anything like that. His approach would be more subtle. He would get very quiet. It wasn’t his usual quiet nature, you could tell these instances were different. Conversation would be reduced to the essentials and he would spend time alone in the basement building a bookshelf or an airplane or something. He’d come up for meals and sleeping and other required family interaction, but otherwise he’d retreat to his own space, be quiet for a while and get his head where he needed it to be, coming to his own terms via his own space. We would rarely talk about whatever he was upset afterwards. This has probably made me ask folks on their current well being a lot over the years.

I inherited this quiet approach from him, but to keep it all interesting, I also inherited my mother’s more demonstrative ways. I kind of have this hybrid approach. If something upsets me and it’s something fairly trivial or minor on the hysteria scale, I’ll rant and rave about it, slam a few doors, throw a boot and consider the matter resolved. It’s out of my system and let’s move on to the next thing. But if something really disappoints me or bothers me, I’ll take like dad and go quiet and build a computer or edit music or something. And because I analyze the crap out of stuff, I compare, contrast, weigh symbols and scrutinize between every line to the point of what may seem trivial to someone else ends up being a big deal to me. I believe that most everything means something even if it falls into the nature of a Freudian Slip.

Did I ever mention that I was complicated?

These traits of mine are not something that I am proud of. Earl keeps telling me that I shouldn’t have expectations when it comes to people because folks rarely live up to our own expectations. My rosy view of the world is often clouded by reality and that’s because it’s MY rosy view. I know I have control issues and I know I have expectations but even after 44 years I’m still learning to let these things go and once in a while something disappoints me and I can’t help but go silent and figure my own way through my feelings. This is how I get through it.

I guess one of the days I might get it all figured out.

So last night, as I drifted off to sleep, as my mind went into that weird in-between sleep mode, I started thinking about books that I have read in the past. I don’t know why my head went there, but the thoughts triggered some memories of these novels I read as a young adult. This got me to wondering as to why these particular books influenced me in some way to be remembered 30 years later, but it made my head hurt so I stopped trying to figure out the reason.

The first book I remembered was “Killing Mr. Griffin” by Lois Duncan. I don’t remember when I read this book but I’m pretty certain that I read it more than once, though I don’t know that I would have chosen to read this book on my own. It had to have been a reading assignment for a high school class. I’m guessing that the assignment may have come along in my sophomore year, but I have no way to be certain. I remember being able to visualize the story very well while I was reading it. A little searching this morning made me realize that it was made into a TV movie in the 90s. I’ll have to see if the movie matches what I visualized.

Another book I remembered was “Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy”. This book was about a young man who could make himself invisible through the use of a robotic dragonfly that he controlled through a helmet and other sensory providing hardware. He wasn’t literally invisible, but rather, he was able to be in a room through the senses of this robotic dragonfly. I remember the story involving espionage, an organization called the ISIT and that the Russians were definitely the bad guys. I must have read this earlier on and I’m guessing I might have chosen this for myself because it’s definitely the type of book I would have read as a kid. Danny Dunn had his own series of books, but this is the only one I think I read.

There is a third book that I vaguely remember but the title and author’s name escape me. It had something to do with two identical houses in the woods; one was fully renovated and wonderful, the other was dilapidated and used as a hangout or hideout by a group of teenage kids. Other than that, the plot escapes me.

I read a lot as a kid. I loved the third incarnation of the “Tom Swift” series that took place in space. That version of space travel seemed very plausible to me. My favorite novel of all time is a space novel called “The Demu Trilogy” by F M Busby. Lots of sex, lots of action and it was alien enough to make it seem real. I reread that book from time to time.

The internet and technology in general has kind of taken me away from reading novels and the like. I think I need to make a shift back to reading for the enjoyment of reading. I loved escaping into a good book. Perhaps my sanity would be easier to find if I allowed myself that luxury again.