Thoughts on Reading

It's more difficult to listen to stories and cook at the same time, but it can be done. It's the same with watching movies while cooking – difficult doable.
The thing that I really enjoy doing, is impossible to do while doing other things. That is: read. You know, read from an actual book - enjoy the sensation of the words flowing past you so fast you forget you're reading and you're watching a movie in your mind instead. You don't register the turning of the pages, one after the other, or the actual words – they are all transformed into a glowing image.
I suppose, now thinking about it some more, it is possible to double task while reading. For instance, you can eat or walk, listen to music and if you're really good at crocheting or knitting you can do that and read, but I don't think that there is real enjoyment in the process if other things muck it up. There's always the worry that something is going to get on the pages, be it tea, dirt, or mashed potatoes. This is one of the reasons I hardly ever read outside – I don't want to mess the book up. This is, I suppose detrimental to my health, especially when I spend the whole of a day, sometimes two or three if I'm allowed to read uninterrupted, inside with only a few minutes total of my day spent in the great outdoors.
Not exactly a healthy lifestyle, right?
But is it healthy to live without stories- be they real or fantasy? I think most definitely not.

A Philosophical Turn in the Poetry Garden

So, I had a moment and somehow managed to turn out a couple of "deep" poems.

Dreams of the Many
by
Caroline M. L. McMillan

Were those few who live a fishbowl
existence born to stand
out so that the masses
could blend
in? Or were those few born to
portray the dreams
of the many? To stand,
painted, primped,
nude, nonplussed, costumed and bejeweled and
repeat the words of the dreaming
masses?
Were they born to show our dreams,
to allow those phantoms to step onto
an altered stage—
reality and dream mixed for a time
in only the viewers' eye?

For there is no reality in what they do,
painted and primped, costumed and bejeweled
before the cameras.
Even if dream be based in history,
the story unfolded in the dreamer's eye
in the dark, velvet black
with cushioned seating can, at best,
be only a blurred facsimile.

So take refuge, those whose lives
blend in, those who pass—
unobserved—
through life. Take refuge
in the dark
with the lighted screen
and dancing figures
your dreams in mouths
born to stand out and live a tortured
existence—every eye turned,
ever under scrutiny, every fault uncovered
every move revealed.
Pity them and let them
alone.
Allow them to portray the dreams of the masses
by so often blending in
when they were born
to stand out.

Shift
by Caroline M. L. McMillan

She sits and stares
Teacup in one hand
a finger idly stirring
spoon forgotten beside a saucer on the table
cup, paused, halfway between.
The house dark
Silent.
She sits and stares.
Steam curls as
Gray clouds pile—
mountains, valleys
caves, dark and cold.
Stop.

House echoes
mumbling, creaking, sighing, shifting
Cup and saucer sit
abandoned
Spoon half on, half off
a cream colored saucer
a trail of sugar from the bowl
Teacup is tipped
a long dark stain on a pristine white tablecloth.
Still she sits
Frozen.

She sits and stares
The common before
The unparalleled resting behind her eyes
A frozen pantomime of calm.

Thump. Large bag on the floor.
Tall, tired, young
A brush of a kiss on
the cheek brings her back.
“Hi Momma.”

Things weren't
the way they should be.
Now
they are.

An Introduction of Sorts

I find cleaning the kitchen oddly therapeutic. Even when I could be watching my favorite TV show, Grey's Anatomy (or Battlestar Galactica – it's a close call) sometimes I just . . . clean the kitchen. I like to cook too – but it's different than cleaning. I keep a book full of recipes I've tried and ones I want to try. I look for the food section in the newspaper because it's the only useful section and to be perfectly frank, what's going on in the rest of the world will keep happening even if I don't know about it. Of course, the best time to clean the kitchen is when I'm at home alone. The mood is completely ruined if anyone else is around. No, it's not your quiet, meditative, “get my zen (or whatever it is) right with the world” or anything resembling that. It's more of your crank up the country music, sling a kitchen towel over my shoulder, and dance around type of thing.
Of course, by now you've got a mental picture of me in your head. Well, you might – I mean, I can see how the TV shows might completely throw you off in your calculations, and then the newspaper comment, too. But that's the thing, in this day an age, I don't think that there is any kind of standard you can hold people to anymore. It probably would skew your picture even more if I said that I have repetitive stress injuries in both hands, poor circulation in my extremities and I had back surgery a couple of years ago.
Got your mental picture? Really sure about it?
Well, I won't ruin it. Not really, anyway. I'll just say that I'm the girl with three greyhounds.
We got the princess first and, because the family has a habit of naming the pets after famous literary characters we named her Juliet. Illustrating the habit, we had Lancelot the cat (he died), now we have Guenevere, the ultimately picky cat, and we have Mr. Darcy, a generic albino white rabbit with an unbelievably sweet temper but the unfortunate habit of spraying urine everywhere when he gets nervous . . .
The Princess, Juliet, was spoiled beyond belief and because she got lonely every time I had to go to school and my mom to work, we got Mr. Tin Man, also known as Romeo. Well, now we had a pair – Romeo and Juliet. Only problem with the picture was that Juliet was most definitely the alpha dog and, last I checked, Romeo was the one going after Juliet and all that. However, overcoming the literary difficulties of the two greyhounds who ruled the house, chewed the furniture, peed on the floor with alacrity and generally made havoc with our lives for the first six months, we overcame to adopt greyhound number three – the fool. Well, we had run out of clever literary names by dog number three (my sister got really creative and suggested that we just name them Damn Dogs One, Two, and Three) so we just settled for the name she came with – Ashley.
Of course, I can't be just the girl with three greyhounds. It's much too narrow a scope and besides I've covered all the bases when it comes to the menagerie – except for the two aquatic frogs that look like they're either dead or about to explode because they're so fat and named Tom and Huck before we realized they were both girls, the lone fish, and the two aquatic turtles that don't get along at all so they have to be kept in separate tanks.
Along with the zoo (which was my mother's in the making, but at my goading), I have other, completely random and totally not 21st century inclinations. Some examples of this include gardening, sewing, embroidery, the odd urge to jump back in time and wear tunics or long court dresses depending on my mood, live in a castle, sail the high seas, or meet the fabulous literary character of Sir Percy Blakeney in the flesh. I'd say I'm a closet romantic, but I'm not. I'm not much good in the sewing department but I'm working on it, and I'm also working on trying not to drown or drought my garden at intervals (which is doing quite well, all in all). My herbs are so so, and rather unvaried, but I'm working on that too. In fact, I just put in cilantro.
My latest bad habit, although how bad it is I'm not sure, is listening to audio books. They're rather addicting because you can do mindless tasks while listening. For instance, I just finished a rather large latchhook rug while listening to two books. It was delightful and passed the hours in the most remarkable fashion. The only problem with it is that some people feel I'm being antisocial when I walk around with earbuds in all the time. I have the troubling habit of giving them blank looks when they talk to me before pulling out an earbud and saying, “I'm terribly sorry, I missed that completely. What were you just saying?”