Kitanzi's Colloquium

Hearing the stunning crack of thunder and running outside in a bathrobe and bare feet (at 6:30 am on November 22nd!) to stand and grin like a lunatic at the RAIN!

IT'S RAINING MEN WATER! HALLELUIAH!

I am currently waiting for the rain to start so I can go run around in it like a mad thing. I used to do that a lot, it used to be fun. I currently look like the losing end of an epic battle with a horde of mad dust bunnies (maybe rabid, definitely pissed off) because I have been packing books. And more books. And moving around the boxes of books already packed.

We are not moving until the end of July. I started out justifying this as the fact that however early you start packing, it's never done in time, so I should really at least pack up the books. I think it's mutated into some sort of coping strategy to deal with months of transition betwee "we live here" and "we live there", when I don't even know yet where there is. (I don't do transitions and change and in between stages very well.) Whatever the reason, we have a wall of boxes of books in the bedroom now which will certainly surprise the cleaning service tomorrow, and many clots of grey dust drifting and sticking and drifting some more. I think some running around in the rain like a ten year old sounds like a really good idea, if only the rain will break.

(Remember, this is Georgia. I would probably not be planning this for the beginning of April if I were still in NH, but here it's actually very reasonable!)

I just realized I never did say I'm done with my physical therapy. I've spent enough time griping, I ought to be telling all the patient people that YES, I am DONE! My doctor signed off on my progress on March 31st, so I have two more months doing my exercises on my own, and then one more appointment where he'll tell me I'm done all the way. It's great, it's absolutely amazing, there were times where I figured I'd never have this much motion on that arm again, and my strength is what I'm working on building now. Anyone want help moving anything? :)

My only gripe now is hayfever. When the pollen meter consistently tells you that on a scale of one to twelve, you're breathing in air with eleven plus concentrations of pollen you know you're in Georgia in the springtime. Nasonex is keeping me sane and nosebleed free, so my gripes are really pretty minimal this year - mostly just chronic exhaustion. I was amused, when I went out to lunch, to see perfect clusters of fingerprints dusted in yellow pollen around the edge and on the window of my driver side door. I've been printed!

I had meant to say, and I got sidetracked - today I'm wearing the lovely new sweater that telynor made for me. It's big and cozy and a gorgeous sort of puplish rose color and I just love it. Georgia has finally hit just the right temperature for it, and it's wonderful.

It also comes with an unexpected bonus - she apparently knitted in many long strands of her own hair, quite by accident. I'm odd, I'm sure, but it's a nice reminder that it's handmade with care and comes from her.

A month or so ago I got a summons to Jury Duty, the first I've ever gotten in any state. So I dutifully hauled myself out of bed and to the Atlanta court bright and early yesterday morning to do my Duty. It turned out to be a lot of hurryup-and-wait, but it had some very interesting aspects, too. Certainly Jury Duty makes for some fascinating people watching. By the nature of the thing you have a very wide cross-section of society, all up damn early to haul themselves down to the court by quarter past eight.
( Possibly more detail than you care to know about the Jury Duty process for the Superior Court of Georgia )

The very beginning of fall is a lovely, mellow time here, and tonight is a perfect example. ACat and I spontaneously decided that it was a perfect evening for going for a walk after dinner, so we wandered out the door with no particular destination in mind. We ambled down to the end of the street and noticed off to the right that the road we'd joined was blocked off and ended in a neglected looking cul de sac, very woody and mysterious looking in the lengthening light.

Well, we both like the woods and thought we'd go see what was down there, so we wandered on down to see what was what. At first it looked impassable - heavy overgrowth, lots of thorny bushes and weeds - but I happened to look a little further off to one corner and... hmmm. There's a little bit of clearing here, between the trees and the bramble bushes. No, look - there's a bit of a track. Interesting!

So we walk in, figuring it can't go anywhere, but it goes on through the tall weeds... and then it widens, and clears out a little bit (still things growing in from the sides and the occasional overreaching bramblebush, but remarkably clear) and draws us on. It runs a bit more, completely (miraculously) free of any trash or human sign, and becomes a pleasant little woody path which shortly leads by a decent sized lake - ah ha, there's the lake Lakeside is named for. Guess they didn't just fill it in for another business complex! But in about 5 minutes walking, we're standing at the edge of a lovely little lake in gathering twilight with only crickets for noise, the sunset staining the sky, and a few lights across the lake to show we're not miles from nowhere, instead of less than a half dozen blocks from home. I kept expecting some woodland De Lint creature to pop arond a tree and pull us into an adventure. It was beautiful, the more so for being so unexpected.

It was a lovely and gentle magic.

I live and work in the South now. I'm a Damn Yankee to my coworkers, though they are polite about it. I know perfectly well that my lifestyle, were I dumb enough to talk about it at work, would label me a freak and a deviant.

Right. So, I'm sitting here quietly sick and furious at myself after the discussion that was underway when I came in. NYC has opened a high school for GLBT students. The consensus in this department, with NOT ONE DISSENTING VOICE, is apparently that not only is this ridiculous, but "those people" should take the consequences of their choice of sexuality, and having children exposed to homosexuals will only corrupt them and cause them to be homosexual. Further (and coming from a half dozen black women, this seems the cream of it to me), "People should live with the laws as they are and not try to get new ones made to give them any more rights." They consider themselves very progressive for allowing "those people" to do what they want in their own homes, as long as they don't have kids or in any way affect the upbringing of any kids, since everyone knows that's what makes kids gay, and that's a terrible thing to any right thinking Christian.

I'm not making any of this up, and I don't know if I'm angrier at them, or at myself for sitting here and shutting up. Mostly I feel sick. I genuinely think that if I made the comments I made above, it would start a shitstorm that would end in me apologizing for everything I said (that I believed, and that would make me more sick than just not talking), or being fired for making trouble and being "racist".

I like these people, though I was considering just yesterday how none of them really feel like friends. Some of this was coming from the one person here that I seriously respect. I knew I didn't fit here - I had not had my face slammed into it quite so hard before, though.

When I moved to GA last year - in fact, even before, while I was still just visiting monthly - ACat and I had a list of fun sounding touristy things he was going to take me to see. Most of them he hadn't been to himself, since locals never seem to get to many tourist attractions, no matter where you live. At the time, though, we were short on cash and most of our entertainment that summer was at home, in the pool. This year we've dug ourself pretty much out of the hole we were jointly in, and some of these ideas have come up again. telynor went to Atlanta Zoo with her son for his birthday recently, and from all reports it sounded great, so guess what made the top of the new list?

( We had a great time! )

NOT that I'm complaining, mind you, but.... weather warm and fine enough to leave the windows open in NOVEMBER feels unnatural. Wow! It's enough to distract me from missing proper fall colors! I don't think I'll miss battling snowplows this year, either, though I may miss having a chance at really playing in the snow. On the whole, I think it's a fair tradeoff, and that's not even taking anything ELSE into account! *G*
Speaking of which, thanks to many, many, many of you who have sent good wishes and kind words and love since Friday - you all are the best of all possible friends, I have to say!