Power Out!

I’ve been off-line for quite a while due to a power failure. Finally, I have power again. I did not use my generator. I didn’t have the need. I just waited through the dark and quiet. This morning, I went to the eye doctor, when I got home, the power was finally back on.

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What a busy morning I had on Saturday! I washed all my bedding and then got busy scrubbing the edges of the hot tub where the chemicals form a hard white crust at the waterline. It’s going to take an incredible amount of elbow grease to get it clean, but I am into it. But I go slowly. I don’t like doing the same thing for too long, so I scrub with my left hand, then the right, then I take a break. During the breaks, I vacuumed, did dishes and swept the deck. I was the Energizer Bunny all morning.

One nice surprise was Dwight calling. For the past while, I have only been able to say one syllable at a time with him, but Saturday morning I could say short sentences. It was a huge relief to us both. 

By lunchtime, having started at 5:30 in the morning, I was totally beat. It had begun to rain, so I had no trouble deciding on what to do. I had a nap. And oh, what a wonderful thing to do. I hate how easily I tire, but I love naps, and all three of my beloved pets came to sleep with me.

The rain endured, so the remainder of the afternoon was spent reading. It was real rain. I was very happy for the gardens and the yard.

In the evening, I watched No Man’s Land, streaming on National Theatre at Home, and what an experience. I chose the play knowing nothing about it. For the firs 20 minutes or so, I was not engaged, with neither the writing nor the plot. But then, it wasn’t about plot, this play, I thought. The ensuing 20 minutes held me, but that isn’t saying much.

The second act was a big shift. It built on the first act, but the characters become people instead of soulless voices speaking clever words. And Ian McClellan is a miracle of an actor in this show. Patrick Stewart and the other two actors are all great, but Ian McClellan is sensational perfection. I was weeping during the curtain call.

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I was pissed when Lady Gaga made a big deal of her PTSD in the media. As I know PTSD, or in my case C-PTSD, it severely impacts our sensibilities. We are constantly on alert, so I cannot see how she can be around massively amplified sounds, bright lights and crowds. I felt she was diminishing what is a devastating aspect of my life and lives of others. Also, there’s an epidemic of self-diagnosis in the conversations of social media and in life conversations. That also bugs me. As has happened with the word, “allergy.” 

Yesterday, on an entertainment news feed I follow, I read that a woman in Los Angeles had filed a lawsuit claiming she suffered from PTSD because another woman had rubbed her vagina. 

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When I was six or seven years old, Connie Tyrell discovered another adoptive mother in our neighbourhood. Her name was Jean. Connie invited jean to visit her, and she told me. I waws very interested in what they would discuss, so I crept downstairs from my room to listen. Good fortune was with me, because when I peeked around the corner at them, I chose exactly the right moment. 

Connie, with her long red fingernails, took a deep drag from hir cigarette, turned to Jean as she stubbed out the butt, exhaled a huge amount of smoke and said, “Well jean, you just don’t know what you’re going to get when you adopt, do you.”

I think that moment was the origin of my ‘bitch within.’ Ask any of my friends. They will all tell you about my bitch within who frequently emerges in conversation. Someone will say something, and suddenly I am air smoking a cigarette, taking a drag, blowing it out and then saying something horrid. My best moment was at a Vancouver Art Gallery party when a pompous board member said something to me that I thought was a little nasty, so I took a deep drag off my imaginary cigarette, blew out the smoke and said, “You know, little man, what you said would have hurt me if it had been said by someone with intelligence.”

Yesterday, I happened on an interview of Tom Hanks with Graham Norton, and at one point he does exactly as I d o. He puffs on an imaginary cigarette, using the two-finger hold that I do, and he said something nasty to Tom Holland! I am not alone!