At the Foot of the Stairs

Tuesdays and Thursdays always make me feel like I'm running all day. The day starts at Department Store unloading the truck, so I'm there by 7:15. Even if the truck is late (and it is always late, by an hour or more, these days), we have plenty to do to get ready for it, so I usually click into fast mode and start moving merchandise. That pretty much sums up what we do there: We move stuff. Of course, there is a lot more thought into where we move it to than that sounds like, but I'm mostly the brawn of this operation. I am not great at looking at a set of tables and T-shirts and deciding how to make them look better, but I can move the table and shirts for you. Anyway, compared to teaching, which mostly involves pacing for me (and hunting for my chalk), and compared to copy editing (let's face it: that's just sitting), Department Store job is pretty active. I have been back working on the since school started, whereas before I was primarily in charge of making sur...

Today is better. I don't have any idea why. Nothing has changed significantly. But I do think that when my mom said that her brother wanted to know what was going on, she meant that he wanted to know the account and phone numbers to get her cable turned on. I texted him the information during my lunch hour, and set my mom up with her kindle (it has never really been used. we got it for her three years ago right after my dad died, but she has trouble with electronics and seeing tiny, all-black buttons on a black background is a problem) and the audio book of Outlander , which she is watching . I don't know whether she will try it out or not. If I were a betting woman or playing Pat Bingo, I'd say she will not. But at least I gave her the option to. I feel good about these things, but I was already in a better mood. Some days, I am physically exhausted, or feel off-- stomach or head upset-- so on days when I feel energetic, no wonky upsets or back pain (note to self: Never...

Money is the last taboo. I am going to be covering topics like this and dating and sex. I have silenced myself for years because I felt I couldn't write about the things that absorb most of my attention. If you are uncomfortable with these topics, feel free to stop reading now.  I have led a very privileged life for most of it. What has been eye-opening to me has been the discovery that before I was really poor-- and I define this as having to play a game I call "bill roulette" every month: Do I pay the electric bill or buy groceries and insulin?-- before I experienced this firsthand, I admit that I enjoyed my privilege. The eye-opening part is how much that I thought I would always have it. Ah, hubris. You get me every time. This month has been bad because I haven't gotten my first paycheck for teaching yet. And because I am teaching, I am earning less at JCP. So anyway, my mom helps out a lot with groceries and this month we got hit particularly hard, s...

It was 2004 when I first started my blog. That was at jenorama.blogspot.com  Then I got Moveable Type and a domain name and moved to jenorama.com. I found it difficult to blog there because the blog reminded me so much of my friend Karl , with whom I had originally started blogging. Karl passed away in August 2008, and it is the first time I have experienced a death that reverberates through my life even today. I have recently been thinking about taking up blogging again, so here it is. I decided to return to this blog, because even though I chronicled taking care of my father until his death of melanoma in June 2011, it's been long enough (hey, I stopped blogging in about June 2011-- coincidence?) that I can write here comfortably. And I am tired of sprinkling blogs through the Internet. One of the reasons I decided to start blogging again is that I have so much going through my head every day that I feel like my head might spin off if I don't try to get some of this out ...