Writing Journal

08-12-01

Today's soundtrack:
Kat 103.7 (I'm not going to keep track of the songs)
101.9 (after Kat 103 started going fuzzy, hardly listened to it for long)
Kat 103.7 (I tried it again)

Today's genre:
poetry, new stuff. Possibly cutting Gleamer and Thief to 2 solid pages.

Today's start time: 3:30

While crocheting and waiting for 3:30, (about 3:15) I heard a song that reminds me of my grandma. It was the only time I remember seeing her smile after my grandpa died. She didn't have a lot of reasons to smile the last few years of her life. She lost her husband a month after her birthday. Her youngest daughter was driving her back from the hospital when he finally passed. Because this was in the days before our family had cell phones, they didn't know until they arrived home. Her youngest son wasn't able to attend the burial service because he had to take his oldest son back to the county jail. About 12 and half months later, she lost her baby brother to alcoholism. He was so jaundiced that the whites of his eyes were a cross between manila and vanilla. An hour before his funeral, one of her sons-in-law passed away. About 12 and a half months after that, on the birthday of her youngest grandchild, she lost her father. She only outlived her father by 6 weeks.

During these years, she was also diagnosed with emphysema because she had been smoking since she was 15. She was in and out of the hospital herself with that. Add to this the stress of most of her children holding a grudge against her oldest grandson. Not to mention that she had been the Power of Attorney for her father for a number of years, her youngest daughter being the assistant PoA. In fact, not long before her death, she began the process of filing DNR papers and was torn between asking the CNA daughter who lived with her and her youngest daughter to be PoA for her.

She was so depressed and addicted to cigarettes that she would smoke with her O2 tank on, right next to her. As though she were trying to kill herself. I can see her there, in her seat at the head of the dining room table, in front of the china cabinet, with a full ashtray and word search book in front of her. Every so often, I get attacked with an image of her in a bed in an upstairs room in the old hospital. I'm standing with my back to the window and Kim is on my left. I was standing even with grandma's chest and looked at her face, which was turned towards my mom across from me. I remember seeing the butt of a Marlboro Light 100 mashed up in her hair and I had to look away. She had been in the hospital for a few days at that point and I nearly cried at the thought that none of the nurses had noticed or had had the courtesy to pull it out. It was my first experience with the dehumanization of elderly patients in a medical setting, and I never forgot it while I was working at the Care Center.

But the song that goes “Play me some country music, the kind that Grandma and Grandpa used to play” reminds me of a happy memory. Barb and Chris had just started going out to karaoke bars. Because they had convinced my mom and grandma to go with them, I got dragged along, also. I remember we were at Tolley's Allies and some older gentleman, maybe a little bit younger than Grandma, got up there and sang it. He had an excellent voice and someone, maybe the waitress, told us that he often sang that song. It was his signature song. I remember Grandma on the other side of the table, clapping along as the man's face turned red from the energy he was expending making her happy. It was the only time I remember her smiling after Grandpa died, and every time I hear that song, that memory is the one that returns and it cheers me as it saddens me.

I'm going to push out a poem immortalizing that moment.

I just finished the first draft. I'm going to say that I spent 45 minutes on it. Just to give a rounded time. It is now 4:05.

I'm going to break until 4:15 then I'm going to type up the ones I spent half an hour writing on Thursday, I think it was. Which reminds me, I need to update my log. I also spent half an hour at the mall writing a poem. So I can log that as well.

Sucks I can't count journaling time as writing time. Pooh.

Took 25 minutes to type those up. I'm counting it as 30.

Which brings today's total to...
30 mall minutes
30 typing minutes
45 Grandma minutes

Year's total: 40.5 hours. A full week's worth of work since August? Some dedicated writer I am. Even for only ever wanting to be obscure.

Starting time on the poetic phraseology I jotted down in code on yesterday's program because I can be a paranoid fool sometimes: 5:45

At 5:50, I had to go back to the journaling I did about the situation. Hopefully I'm not there for too long before I can get back to the emotion propelling the poem.

Those were a little bit of help.

So far, I've spent about 10 minutes with the actual poem. So if I can get another 5 in, I'll be able to count today's total time at 2 hours. Small victory.

Got one more stanza in. I should probably go back and rifle through the ones I wrote today. Go through and straighten them out. Pick out the good stuff, ditch the rest. After I take a little break; my shoulders are killing me.

The apartment's chilly—new stanza idea!

Fixed enough for now.