eating snowflakes with plastic forks

There is a psychiatric disorder called apotemnophila, the main symptom of which is an unrelenting urge to undergo the amputation of a healthy limb.  One of my professors treats such a client, without much success at present.  This disorder, I understand, results from a glitch in the brain's body mapping system, the internal bodily positioning system we use to help us navigate through space.

Before we bought the new bed, I used to wake up in the middle of the night sometimes with one arm numb from sleeping on it, and would have to hold onto it with the other arm to ensure it was still there, make sure it still belonged to me.  This kind of physical confusion could become harder to sort out if the arm remained numb.  (That's the thing about psychological disorders.  Most of the time I can imagine extending my own symptoms clearly enough to feel their edges.)

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Shawn has purchased a second Kindle because I took his.  It was not my plan to do so but it became necessary when I could not find Miriam Toews' new book (Irma Voth), which was, as expected, important to read.  Her books have certain landmarks I now know.  The simple unadorned voice of Prairie Mennonite, the loving but helpless mother, the depressed father, the need to run.  Whether I run alongside or meet her at the end, I know where we are going.  (Somewhere I need to go, like when I pretend in my mind to drive down Memorial Drive into the downtown core.)   It occurs to me that when I read The Flying Troutmans, Colleen was still alive.

The Kindle is strange.  It has no pages.  Sometimes I accidentally flip backward instead of forward, and sometimes I lose track of what I'm doing and flip several screens at once when I only meant to push a hair out of my eye.  Still, I have somehow managed to develop an addiction to it.

Now I am reading Lullabies for Little Criminals which I will not recommend to J.  She reads as much as I do, but I steer her when she lets me.  I point her at To Kill A Mockingbird,  I point her at Flowers for Algernon.  She reads and reports back.  She read Revolutionary Road before I did and sent me to report back to her.  She reads Murakami; she likes the short stories best.

Shawn, meanwhile, is reading things I cannot fathom, things with dragons, maybe.  Or things with Vikings, or maybe things with space ships.  Maybe Vikings riding in space ships on their way to slay dragons.  He is reading paper books, and there are a squillion of them in this series, which was the only way I was able to wrest the Kindle from his hands.

Now that I have discovered why people love Kindles (because when you finish your book you can start a new one, whatever one you want, right now!) I cannot give it back and he has been forced to buy another.  He pretends he is annoyed but I happen to know he is pleased because his new Kindle is more exciting than the old one.  I think it can do tricks and stuff.


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Since school started in September I have missed almost fifteen teaching days.  It demonstrates to me how low Drama falls on the priority list when it comes time to shuffle staff.  And I am torn between wanting to embrace a new career and feeling protective of my little Drama hatchlings who must need my love in order to thrive.  (It is, of course, complete arrogance to assume they will not do just as well if not better under the tutelage of Mr. D, who has more teaching experience than I do by at least fifteen years.)  Most of the time I want to continue my training, but some days I miss knowing what I'm doing. Will a day arrive that I miss watching grade nine boys pretend to shoot each other with broken cap guns (painted orange to prevent anyone from mistaking them for the real thing) yelling "Bang!"?

(B proposed that perhaps the bible was written by lonely children.)



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We are entering the rainy season now, which is winter on the coast.  This has always been a strange transition for me.  Being from the cold, dry, winter prairies, I associate rain with spring.  To me, rain has always meant renewal and warm weather ahead, spring run-off and flooding and brave flowers.  Rain means good things.

Here on the coast, rain means winter.  It means several months of grey skies.  It make people here feel sad.  I know winter is dark.

But still, there is the instinctive long engrained reaction to rain.  Hopefulness and anticipation of good things to come.



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