It has been forever since I have written anything that wasn’t class related. For that I apologize. I have been passing for human lately and it has not been fun.
There is something about the constant researching, reading and analysis that produces a certain constipation in thought, as if your mind is eating nothing but cheese and red meat all day, every day for weeks on end.
Added to this is the growing realization that working in public health can sometimes be a through the looking glass experience that leaves one bat crap crazy at the end of the day. This is what I like to call the mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese part of the mental diet. I find my job personally and professionally rewarding a good deal of the time, but there is always the undercurrent of the bizarre and do I really have to know this moments that clogs the cognitive gears because it fits no logical paradigm known to humankind.
Relaxing by reading the latest, pure escapist fantasy series that had caught my fancy has been akin to adding Doritos and Snickers bars to the mental diet. While you are reading, you revel in the sheer pleasure and ease of it only to shudder when you re-enter reality. If only I had supernatural powers that allowed me to bend space and time, control the minds of others, and have an interesting job like vampire hunting. Better yet, if only I had a ray gun that allowed me to vaporize those who annoyed me. Then the brain candy wears off and I am glum as I discover several people I vaporized in my mind are still walking around annoying me.
No, I needed the writer’s strike to end to get some decent t.v. I needed t.v. whose sole purpose is to provide the visual and aural soundtrack to my knitting. A good t.v. drama or comedy accompanied by the sound of clicking needles – the Metamucil for the mind. I have reveled in the newest episodes of the original Law and Order and Lost. I am mad with anticipation over the new and final season of Battlestar Galactica. Knitting to t.v. allows me to pretend that I am not wasting time watching a show. Knitting to t.v. allows me to justify adding some more brain cells to the t.v. cortex of my brain.
I have also kept up with the Tuesday night knitting group. I used to go and get a tremendous amount of knitting accomplished while catching up on everyone else. The last few weeks, however, it has been more about showing up, drinking a couple of glasses of wine and the fellowship. Without this, I don’t think I would survive. More importantly, they don’t seem to hold the not knitting thing against me by calling me a poser – at least to my face, any way. They also don’t seem to hold it against me (at least not to my face) that my education in public health has become their education in public health. I feel sorry for their children as I am most probably responsible for some quite embarrassing conversations and 7 p.m. curfews.
The creativity is coming back and it feels good.
No comments:
Post a Comment