Perforation Problems

In trying to come up with things to write about I started looking through old stuff and wanted to post this poem-whatever-thing I wrote when my Great-Grandpa T died, not long after Great-Grandma T. It's weird to read old stuff cause some of it makes me want to throw up a little but some of it I like. I like the beginning of this but not so much the middle and end, but here it is for posterity and so maybe someday I revise it a bit. Eight months later, the pallbearers are the same, though this time they carry their burden over frozen ground. With sudden formality in the set of their shoulders, these men I see every day become a little foreign, the tangible weight of family responsibility between them. I've never seen my brothers looking so much like men. He said, "You have to make sure she goes into the tomb feet first, so that when I go our heads are side-by-side. We need to be able to talk to each other." I can tell when I look at his hands, though, th...

I feel entirely uninspired right now. I don't want to write about anything. This week has been gray and rainy and I've felt like a sloth. I just want to sleep or watch Netflix or—strangely—run on the treadmill, because none of those things require thinking. I had a couple ideas for writing topics today. While I was emptying the dishwasher I mentally wrote an entire post about death changing your idea of what's important. Later I thought I might write about La La Land and how some movies leave you feeling like the world is just a little bit magical—like you could waltz through Meijer as you pick up milk and eggs, like you could spend your days painting flowers and cooking delicious, elaborate meals (I've been watching America's Test Kitchen.) But now that I'm sitting here at my designated writing time nothing sounds appealing and I have no thoughts or words or inclination to write anything. I turned on the La La Land soundtrack to try to inspire myself. Nothi...

It could be the fact that I let my Sudafed wear off, or that my cold/sinus infection was getting worse, but I think it was mostly the quartet of voices telling me I was really sick that had me feeling like I was dying. First Brinna, as we caught up on our holidays via gchat: "You're STILL sick?? Haley." Then Michael, who responded to my text saying I might go to the Minute Clinic if I didn't feel better by tomorrow with, "Maybe you should go today after you're done at work." Then my coworker, who gave me a tilted head, "you know better" Mom look when I told her antibiotics probably wouldn't help. But it was the last voice, Jessica the Nurse Practitioner at the CVS Minute Clinic who really gave me permission to abandon myself to my snot-filled miseries. "So you've had symptoms for a couple weeks?" "Well, since Halloween, so like...two months." "OH. Well, then." She moves from her computer a...