Masspeak

Masspeak, the enormous piles of braided and (mostly black) painted rope Little Red Hen mentions in her current post, "North Dakota Brought Closer," seem nothing like "giant washcloths," as one reviewer called them. Take a look.



Any old housewife is more likely to call this a "dishcloth," and it reaches almost to the ceiling. This old housewife found it kind of terrifying, which is probably grist for the psychoanalytic mill. There could be a horror movie about a dishcloth like this, and there probably is...hmmm...maybe the original "Father Knows Best"?

If you live in NYC, you can go scare yourself by looking at this massive piece of Orly Genger's art at Larissa Goldston Gallery, 530 West 25th Street, 3rd floor. The last day is May 5, 2007. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm.

Ufda!

Photos that didn't make the cut....

yesterday i posted about cathy's, sally's, naomi's and my visit to The Plains of Sweet Regret, a video installation by mary lucier. mary's husband is also an extraordinary artist. he paints near magical landscapes of mostly trees or water or both. one time i stayed overnight at his house with his then wife, who is a good friend, and from my vantage point on the living room sofa, i could see this one wall-sized painting every time i opened my eyes throughout the night and early the next morning. i swear the sky in the painting showed the passage of the hours, culminating in a fabulous rosy-gold glow behind the trees at daybreak. mary's work, too, has always intrigued me. she's gracious, warm, and friendly....just the sort of person to pick up the vibes of my home state. i couldn't wait to see her show.

anyway, sally laughed at the photo i posted of her yesterday, so i thought i'd show the ones that didn't make the cut. here they are: (the page from Condom Amulets is of "The Princeton.") sally's husband saw the NYC condom in her billfold and asked, "What were you ladies doing??"

"Plains of Sweet Regret"

The photo above is a video still on the back cover of a gallery handout celebrating The Plains of Sweet Regret, a video installation at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., 514 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001. Mary Lucier, an American video artist whose work is known internationally, created this installation on commission from the North Dakota Museum of Art. Saturday, April 28, was the last day of the show, so Cathy and I went up there to see it. Sally joined us, as did Naomi Dagen Bloom, known to knitters, peace activists, and bloggers as A Little Red Hen.

Mary Lucier's subject in The Plains of Sweet Regret is North Dakota, where I was raised and Sally was born. The videography of the plains and its present (shown in vivid shots of local rodeos, wheat fields, and farm animals) and former life (shown in the weathered, abandoned farmhouses and barns) was very moving.

I especially loved Lucier's video of a grasshopper, sitting at once alert and calm in a man's hand. We played a lot with grasshoppers as kids in North Dakota, and the brief, sunlit closeups of the insect captured for me the essence of North Dakota: the simplicity of the landscape and the life, the intimate relationship between people and creatures, and the peculiar luminosity of the light, which is very much like the light you see in the New England sky as you approach the ocean.

Naomi, also an installation artist (see CityWorm) and variously described in Google as an "environmental and performance artist" and a "mixed media environmental artist," brought along a copy of her handmade book, Condom Amulets.



The book evolved from one of her present concerns, safe sex for seniors. She promotes condom use (no longer necessary for prevention of pregnancy) for women over 50. She also celebrated Valentine's Day this year by distributing the free NYC Condoms at an icy subway stop near her home.





Sally and Cathy kept the conversation going with Naomi....I was in a new environment nobody told me about at the audiologist's office: New York City. The city pretty much overwhelmed the computer chips in my CI processor, and I didn't know how to adjust it. So...back to smiling and nodding and responding to anything that sounded like English. It was so bad that, at first, I thought I'd wrecked my processor when it fell on the sidewalk yesterday as I changed batteries, thinking that was the problem. But this morning after a quiet night in its dry box, the processor was working again. Scary to be so dependent on such a little object, but that was a good lesson to learn among friendly companions. Thanks, you guys....I could have asked Cathy to interpret for me, but I thought I'd just wade right in and experience the conversation as best I could. Dumb, huh?

comment problems

Several people have emailed me recently to say they tried to leave comments on my posts, but the comments were rejected. I have no idea why this is happening. From the beginning I've not had any restrictions on who could comment...."anyone" is allowed to comment. Why it's acting up like this, I dunno. I've gone over the comments settings again, and it seems to be fine. If you have a problem leaving a comment, please email me (email address is in my profile). Thanks, and sorry this is happening....I just don't know why.

Cochlear Implant, Week 3....

Three weeks ago, they turned my cochlear implant on. Today I was reading Wired for Sound, Bev Biderman's classic report on her experiences after her implant was turned on. And I realized that, disappointed though Biderman was initially with her lack of significant experiences compared with many, she was way ahead of me. I'm a bit disappointed that my results have not been more dramatic or even recognizable. Maybe they implanted the wrong ear....my left ear has much more hearing than the right one did (the one with the implant). Maybe this is as loud and distinct as it's going to get. Maybe the nerve in my right ear has atrophied from long disuse. Other people were having conversations in restaurants and making phone calls right off the bat. Not me. Of course, Biderman was lots younger than I am now when she got her implant. She was a mere kid of 46. Hmph.

Well, Biderman's book is a treasure trove of resources and support materials for implantees, and I need to get with the program. No use sitting around whining.

The magic continues....

While I am learning to interpret what my CI is giving me, I’ve also been involved for the past few days on a voluntary basis in a project that I belatedly discovered is firmly AGAINST cochlear implants, especially for infants and young children--before they are old enough to choose themselves to get an implant. The rationale behind these anti-CI opinions is that there is nothing wrong with deaf babies, and we do not need to fix them. Being deaf, according to these culturally Deaf (with a capitol D) opinions, does not prevent a person from experiencing life and its satisfactions to the fullest in every way.

And here I’ve been thinking that, yes, implanting infants makes the most sense of all! Let me explain.

My life and experience as hearing person prior to 1963 have not really helped me adapt to my CI except in the sense that I do know I can access beauty and information through my ears. I’ve been thinking that audiologically speaking, I’m really an infant with this CI. It’s not my remembered hearing but my BRAIN that is making sense of CI-facilitated sounds. The more sounds I hear, the more I practice listening, the more my brain synthesizes these chaotic, initially incomprehensible noises into meaningful sounds.

For example: the initial birdsongs all sounded alike and boring...”CHEEP, CHEEP, CHEEP”…like those little tin bird whistles you can buy in souvenir shops. Now I hear different birds, different songs (including, memorably, a mockingbird last week!).

Living in the city, I’ve seen emergency vehicles pass by with lights flashing every day. The first sirens I “heard” sounded like a bunch of high-pitched squeaks (or, as I put it elsewhere, "mosquitos with their tits in a wringer"). This morning, while I was riding the bus, an ambulance passed us, and I heard the actual siren. If I also heard the squeaks (and next time I hear a siren, I'll be sure to pay attention to this), my brain has learned to ignore them.

Daffy Duck is alive and well, but he’s been taking voice lessons. People’s voices, which two weeks ago were all flat, indistinguishable, and monotone are now individualized. I can tell Tim’s voice from Linda’s, Linda’s voice from Yinka’s, Yinka’s voice from Anita’s, and my own voice from everyone else’s. All of this has been the work of my brain.

I would guess that it’s the same work an infant does when it learns, finally, to say “Mama” or “Dada” or “I wan jooos!” I don’t remember what I heard as an infant, but the sounds of my own breathing and the rustling of my blanket had to be among the clearest and most identifiable. Then I learned to make sense of other sounds--my mother's voice, the dog growling. At 12 months, Peggy was saying “boog” proudly as she pointed to the Box Elder bugs swarming on the warm porch of our house in Bismarck. Tom used to say “boody” (for “birdy”) when he saw a bird. Now Peg and Tom can say “bug” and “birdy” like champions. But back then, it’s possible they had not heard all of the discrete sounds involved in “bug” or “birdy” in addition to being unable to reproduce them vocally. We call this cute baby language “baby talk.” Babies all over the world do this, and it takes them months to be able to put this into recognizable if imperfectly articulated speech.

My brain has been going through this same accumulation/synthesis process—at age 70! Of course, I’ve learned a few tricks in all that time, so already I can say bug and birdy, but if I hear those words on a recording via my CI without being able to SEE what the words are, they may not yet be familiar to my brain.

The cochlear implant is magical…there’s really no other word for it. Or rather, my brain is magical. Imagine taking this world of sounds and making sense of them! Of course they should implant babies who are born without a functional sense of hearing. Their brains won’t know the difference between what would have been theirs by nature and what is theirs now by technology.

Two Weeks....

Today was two weeks from turn-on day, and I decided to see if I actually could hear some music. I bought a CD Walkman yesterday, so tonight I hacked and wrestled it out of the nightmarish plastic packaging, found a fresh AA battery, and set it up with the only CD in the house: "Beatles 1." Sally must have forgotten it when she was here recently. I plugged the audio cord into my processor, turned everything on, propped the manual on the couch next to me, and tried to figure out the sound controls while the first tunes played. I recognized the Beatles unique beat almost at once...so far so good. After about 15 minutes of fiddling with various small controls, I was preparing to turn it off and find more appropriate music, when suddently I heard, as clear as a bell, "I want to hold your hand." Whaddya know?! That's all I could pick out, and it wasn't musical, but I heard it. That's progress!!

Today's Belly Laugh.....

[thankx and a tip o' the old tam o' shanter to Cathy for passing this along]

Saintly Man, Recently Retired...

It is important for men to remember that, as women grow older, it becomes harder for them to maintain the same quality of housekeeping as when they were younger. When you notice this, try not to yell at them. Some are oversensitive, and there's nothing worse than an oversensitive woman.

My name is Jim. Let me relate how I handled the situation with my wife, Peggy. When I retired a few years ago, it became necessary for Peggy to get a full-time job along with her part-time job, both for extra income and for the health benefits that we needed.

Shortly after she started working, I noticed she was beginning to show her age. I usually get home from the golf club about the same time she gets home from work. Although she knows how hungry I am, she almost always says she has to rest for half an hour or so before she starts dinner. I don't yell at her. Instead, I tell her to take her time and just wake me when she gets dinner on the table. I generally have lunch in the Men's Grill at the club so eating out is not reasonable. I'm ready for some home-cooked grub when I hit that door.

She used to do the dishes as soon as we finished eating. But now it's not unusual for them to sit on the table for several hours after dinner. I do what I can by diplomatically reminding her several times each evening that they won't clean themselves. I know she really appreciates this, as it does seem to motivate her to get them done before she goes to bed.

Another symptom of aging is complaining, I think. For example, she will say that it is difficult for her to find time to pay the monthly bills during her lunch hour. But, boys, we take 'em for better or worse, so I just smile and offer encouragement. I tell her to stretch it out over two or even three days. That way she won't have to rush so much. I also remind her that missing lunch completely now and then wouldn't hurt her any (if you know what I mean). I like to think tact is one of my strong points.

When doing simple jobs, she seems to think she needs more rest periods. She had to take a break when she was only half finished mowing the yard. I try not to make a scene. I'm a fair man. I tell her to fix herself a nice, big, cold glass of freshly squeezed lemonade and just sit for a while. And, as long as she is making one for herself, she may as well make one for me, too.

I know that I probably look like a saint in the way I support Peggy. I'm not saying that showing this much consideration is easy. Many men will find it difficult. Some will find it impossible! Nobody knows better than I do how frustrating women get as they get older. However, guys, even if you just use a little more tact and less criticism of your aging wife because of this article, I will consider that writing it was well worthwhile. After all, we are put on this earth to help each other.

Signed,
Jim

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Jim died suddenly on March 27 of a perforated rectum. The police report says he was found with a Calloway extra long 50-inch Big Bertha Driver II golf club jammed up his rear end, with barely 5 inches of grip showing and a sledgehammer lying nearby.

His wife Peggy was arrested and charged with murder. The all-woman jury took only 15 minutes to find her Not Guilty, accepting her defense that Jim somehow, without looking, accidentally sat down on his golf club.

House in a smallish town....

Well, here we go again....I found this house online that I thought was maybe an hour's drive from DC, and it reminded me so much of our old house in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, with the porch and the big lot (space for a garden!!) that I just sort of fell into this feverish craving for a house in a small town. Me, the city lover. Go figure. It is over 1700 square feet, has 3 bedrooms, a dining room, a den (and kitchen, living room, and bathroom)...all for the grand price of $25,000! Cripes, for that price, (I thought giddily) I could put it on my credit card!

I contacted my mortgage guy yesterday and asked him what he thought. He works for one of the bankers (recent college grads, by the looks of 'em) who convinced me to buy TWO apartments and combine them when our building went condo way back in 1998 or 1999.

"You're crazy," I said. "I can't even afford ONE!"

"Sure you can," they said. "You just have to change your lifestyle."

Well, there was a novel thought! My lifestyle had pretty much consisted of being broke half the time and near-broke the other half and spending every cent as fast as I made it. A friend used to say, "We've got to get you OUT of that vow of poverty!" My favorite of the old pre-Disney cartoons, which used to run very early on Saturday mornings in Bismarck, was "The Grasshopper and the Ant." The music was a sprightly folk band accompanying the Grasshopper as he fiddled his theme: "Oh, the world owes me a livin'..."oompah oompah oomp.

I loved it. I loved the grasshopper's esprit, compared with which the ant's life seemed joyless and driven. With a grand leap of faith in the universe, I took the bankers' advice and bought two apartments, combined them, and then sat back after the construction dust settled to watch the housing market (and the taxable valuation of my new condo) go up and up and up. I've had lots of fun renovating old places but never so much fun as that.

Back to the house at the top of the post....the mortgage guy felt there was something that didn't quite match. The house had over 1700 square feet, 3 bedrooms, etc., but was only $25,000. So he called the listing agent and asked him why. And the listing agent told him.

The house has been totally gutted. Everything has been cleared out down to the studs. It will need new everything: HVAC, plumbing, wiring, kitchen, bathrooms, the works.

Oh...and the other thing...it's several hours' drive from here, and the trains don't go that far. I have dark, judgmental thoughts about commuting long distances in a car these days. I sold my last car in 1991, and it was one of the happiest days of my life! Goodbye to gas, insurance, freakin' repairs, standing by the roadside in my weenie nylons thumbing a ride when the car broke down. Ha.

Well, now what? A normal woman would say, "Oh, my. Well, too bad. I need a house that already has a toilet and a furnace. A kitchen sink, too. Thanks for your time. Buh-bye...."

Instead, I am SALIVATING at the idea of doing a TOTAL REHAB job! A couple of years ago, we had a solar-powered house competition on the Capitol Mall. A bunch of students from different colleges and universities entered the competition and built houses on the mall that were completely powered by solar energy, including enough for a small electric car to drive x number of miles per week! The houses, as I remember, had a living area, a kitchen, a computer room, a bathroom and a bedroom...plus whatever else they could think of.

The kids from the University of Colorado in Boulder built my favorite. I still remember the lights that went on in my brain when I saw their bathroom floor was solid, tastefully tinted CEMENT, and it had a drain in it, too. Have to wash the bathroom floor? Get a big bucket of hot soapy water, and toss it on the floor...sweep the water down the drain, scrubbing away the grimy spots as you go.

Well...the Little Red Hen commented on a recent cochlear implant post that she didn't know if she would have the patience for that much uncertainty. Red, you don't know the half of it!

Wot next??

Go check out Ronniecat's blog:

The Wordsworth rap, Ronniecat??

Word, indeed....

A week and a day....

Yesterday was one week from turn-on. I went to the audiologist with some questions, all mainly having to do with how to get MORE VOLUME from this thing?! Ryan, the audiologist, mainly told me to have PATIENCE and to quit fiddling with the processor!! He said my BRAIN is gonna do all the heavy lifting from now on, and that I should just stick with the standard program (as he set it). He said that some day in the future I would arrive at that happy place where I would not have to STRAIN to hear anyone talking, and that I would be able to identify (and subsequently ignore) background noises. Wow.

So I've been good. I went and got a new permanent last night after wurk. I was soooo tired to seeing my fine hair sprawled all over....like Flannery O'Connor's "her hair was like ham gravy trickling over her skull" (think I've mentioned THAT before). Anyway, everyone seemed to like the curls today, including me. I woke at 2 a.m. this morning to the sound of something FRYING in my right ear, and I was worried that the permanent fumes had penetrated to the implant and was cooking it to death. But then this a.m., the frying sound was gone, and the implant worked just fine.

Meanwhile, I can distinguish BETWEEN voices now (including my own North Dakota accent), and I am hearing a few more variations in the birds' songs. And I could TALK with people: the guy in Georgetown Optician, where I picked up my new glasses after work, and the young woman in the wine shop down on P Street. I can't say I liked the wine all that much, even though she said it was "GREAT!" It was a Bastianich wine, and I told her how much my daughter loved Becco in NYC and admired Lidia Bastianich. That conversation would never have happened last week. I also got her to order some Frascati for me, which now is available only at Rodman's and Litteri's here (well, probly lots elsewhere, too, but you know....I am just a little old lady in tennis shoes, and I don't rod around much). But, gee....thanks, dear universe, for that CONVERSATION! what a great treat that was!!!

Milestone...and a good joke

MILESTONE

Sitemeter informed me this a.m. that as of yesterday, I have had more than 5,000 visits to XtremeEnglish since startup on July 4 last summer! Imagine! As of now, visits are averaging 40 per day. Gee. For an 'umble little blog, that amazes me.

GOOD JOKE (well, oldie but goodie)

George Bush goes to a primary school to talk to the kids to get a little PR.

After his talk he offers question time. One little boy puts up his hand and George asks him his name.

"Stanley," responds the little boy.

"And what is your question, Stanley?"

"I have 4 questions:
First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the UN?
Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more votes?
Third, whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?
Fourth, why are we so worried about gay marriage when 1/2 of all Americans don't have health insurance?"

Just then, the bell rings for recess. George Bush informs the kiddies that they will continue after recess.

When they resume George says, "OK, where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has a question?"

Another little boy puts up his hand. George points him out and asks him his name.

"Steve," he responds.

"And what is your question, Steve?"

"Actually, I have 6 questions.
First, why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the UN?
Second, why are you President when Al Gore got more votes?
Third, whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden?
Fourth, why are we so worried about gay marriage when 1/2 of all Americans don't have health insurance?
Fifth, why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early?
And sixth, what the hell happened to Stanley?"

Easter

The Writer's Almanac has this good bit in today's entry:

The word "Easter" comes from an ancient pagan goddess worshipped by Anglo Saxons named Eostre. According to legend, Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a rabbit. Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and that rabbit became our Easter Bunny. Eggs were a symbol of fertility in part because they used to be so scarce during the winter. There are records of people giving each other decorated eggs at Easter as far back as the 11th century.

I thought of Miles Davis and the egg gatherer in Day to Day Life of a Very Lazy Gardener....

Happy Easter!

Oops!

Raised the shade on the kitchen window this morning and saw this! Reminds me of the old poem--forget who wrote it.

How I luff der vinter season!
Brings us ski und schnee und schneezin!

The Lenten fast used to end precisely at noon on this day when I was growing up. What my parents ate, I don't know. They were kind of old school...which means there was no wild gorging at 12:01 because it was still officially Lent. Doubtless the fast ended at noon on Easter Saturday so the priests would not faint from hunger during the Easter Vigil service.

TGIGF*

Had enough of moping around the pews? Here are some truly tasteless jokes to brighten your day:


A cowboy rides into town, hitches up his horse and walks into a bar. He goes up, gets a beer, drinks it, and walks out. Half a second passes and he bursts back into the bar and says "ALRIGHT WHICH ONE OF YOU MOTHERS PAINTED MY HORSE'S FACE YELLOW?" A huge man-mountain stands up, looks down at the cowboy and says "I DID". The cowboy looks up at him and whispers "The first coat's dry."

"Don't cry darling, Daddy had to drown the cat."
"Yes I know, but he promised I could do it." [Mojito, that one was fr u!]

Tonto and the Lone Ranger were lost on the prairie one day. The Lone Ranger says to Tonto: "Use your Indian instincts and get us out of this mess." Tonto bends down and puts his ear to the ground. He turns and says to the Lone Ranger, "Buffalo come." The Lone Ranger says to Tonto, "How do you know?" Tonto says, "Ear sticky."

What are the best ten years of an Irishman's life?
Third grade.

*Thank God it's Good Friday
[thanx and a tip o' the rabbit ears to Sally, who sent the cartoon]

Day Three and 5/6ths....One last revelation

By accident this a.m., I turned on the TV (to get the disk--"Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle"--out to send back to Netflix). The TV turned itself on, and I saw maybe two minutes of some interview show. Alas, television is even more banal when you can hear it than when you have to read the captions. That is, it's breath-takingly DUMB.

Of course, there's good dumb...a category in which "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" is firmly set. Nobody's ever accused me of having too much taste.

Day 3: Revelations...

The wind in my hair....sounds like several hundred thousand fairies, each holding up one strand of hair between their cupped hands and blowing on it--like we used to do with blades of grass in the summertime...remember?? Today is windy...ergo, LOTS of sounds to figger out. (Well, I SAID I was hearing EVERYTHING, right?)

Being able to TALK BACK AND FORTH with people....is very RELAXING. I've been going around with this goofy grin on my face all day once I figgered that out. It's just fun.

My voice sounds....less loud, less gravelly (or so I'm told--via the implant, everybody sounds just exactly the same, myself included). Gee.

I can still hear myself breathing and all the rest....if I pay attention to it. I've learned in just two days to ignore it completely!

Some computers....make hissing noises! Must be Macs, cuz mine at home does it, and so does the one here. The others don't hiss.

Sirens sound like....mosquitoes being tortured. Not loud, just weird.

HMMMM.....

Do you suppose babies go through this process of converting all these minute splinters of noise to meaning?

Day Two: The Manual....

Went back to Hopkins for turn-on #2 today, and Ryan the audiologist added two more programs--which I don't know how to use yet cuz I'm still learning how to work the switches! Meanwhile, Cathy met me for lunch at Union Station after I got back, and the background noise was overwhelming. One of the new programs is for situations just like that, but I couldn't figure out how to switch to it. The MANUAL was at home, not in the big box of accessories and other necessary items Ryan asked me to bring along today! Cripes! They never told me there'd be a manual!

We did leave Union Station for a quieter spot, and sure enough, recognizable sounds started turning up again. I actually heard Cathy's laugh--a great sound. We've known each other for about 10 years and in all that time i've never heard her actual laugh, even though she's a cheerful soul and laughs a lot.

After I got home from lunch, I took a loooong nap. (No, I didn't have any wine...just a glass of rosemary lemonade, which was just fabulous.) But when I woke up, oh, no! The damn thing did not work at all!!! Couldn't even get the magnet to stick to the implant under my scalp. I was just about to go get the big box of CI stuff to change the magnet when it dawned on me (helloooo, m.e.....) that i had it on the wrong ear! Er...ahem!

When I got out of the taxi this aft after lunch, the birds were singing loudly in our neighborhood. What a lovely sound!

Turn-on #3 is five days from now, Monday, when Ryan'll add some "features" (described in the MANUAL!) and see how the CI is working. I hope I'll have figured out how to listen to music. The taxi driver this aft in DC was playing music on the radio, but I heard it with my OTHER ear...the little deaf cousin who lives across the vacant lot. Who knew?

Day One: What I Heard Today....

A series of double beeps of various tones
A rattle rattling (my favorite of the audiologist's noisemakers)
A little hand bell (which did not sound like ringing)
Birds (every time I was outside)!! Yay, birds!
The doorman's whistle as he summoned our cab
The arrivals/departures board flipping every time a train moved up
Money falling on a counter
The public address system in Baltimore's Penn Station and on the train (as a disparate sound--weebly oobly--from the background noises)
Sally and Cathy talking (but not recognizable as human speech)
Myself talking (ditto)
The pager keys tapping as I typed
The computer keys (ditto)
Two or three test sentences ("It's a nice day today" is only one I remember)

Note on pager, 11:55 a.m.: "Waitin fr train back to dc. It's incredibly different to hear all these sounds I haven't heard for over 40 years. But it's not like HEARING. It's like hearing every single particle of every single sound and not knowing how they fit together. V interesting! Back tmw for more tweaking. I can't have it up as loud as I need just yet. [And only have two of the 4 programs installed so far] Also, it's like hearing splinters of MUSIC."

Yeah, music...who could have predicted this?

Note on pager, 4:07 p.m.: This is a trip! I cn hear the keys on this thing clicking fr the first time. And I cn hear Sally and myself speak [Cathy in another car], but it doesn't sound like talking yet. Can hear self chewing crackers....munch, munch, munch. Best of all, when I go outside, I DEFINITELY CAN HEAR BIRDS! Dunno wot kind, but birds fr sure. very reassuring, them birds."

Most of the time I hear weird background-kinda noise--eggs frying, crickets having a rock concert. Having the TV on in the other room was too distracting--had to shut it off.

Peggy called while we were in Baltimore Penn Station waiting for the train back. Sorry I could not hear you over the phone, Peg-o, but once I get the hang of phone calls, you'll still be the first person I call.

I keep thinking of the whole cognitive question. I asked Ronniecat if she'd noticed any cognitive changes since she got her implant. She's thinking on this and will write about it when she formulates her reply, but I can think of one: how the brain takes all these tiny splinters of music and comes up with the recognizable sound of a human voice speaking. My brain as processor seems to be waaay out of practice. Except, there's so much missing. Hmmm...

Well, it's changing hourly. I'd go back outside and listen to some more BIRDS, though it's past their bedtime.

One other thing that is very nice about the implant sound is that it's not painful or overwhelming or constantly stressful like with hearing aids. LOUD sounds are just different--so far, anyway. Now that I'm not hearing with a hearing aid, I realize this. One step at a time.

Oh, man!! Two more sounds I just picked out of the haze: my soda fizzing in the bottle as I lift it to my mouth to take a drink, and myself breathing! So all this breathing sh*t is what's contributing to the background noise!! How do you hearing people DEAL with this???

This is fun. This is very different from what I could ever have imagined it to be. This is like learning Martian.

Thanks to dear Cathy and Sally for being with me today. No gurl is an island.

DAY ONE AND A HALF....

I'm realizing that I'm hearing EVERYTHING...even the individual fibers in my shirt scratching together when I move my arm!! Hearing folks must just tune this stuff out completely. Ha. They'd have to or they'd go nuts.

This must be why one of the most devastating experiences as my hearing went away was when I could no longer hear myself walking around. I felt like a ghost.

She's ready!

My implant has proven so lifelike, I've given it a name: Arbella. Arbella also is the name of the woman (Lady Arbella Stuart) I firmly believe wrote the plays credited to Shakespeare--or many of them, anyway. She's the only one who COULD have written them. She was a member of the nobility, lived in the royal palace, and could read and write four or five languages. While the actor William Shakspere's peers in birth and education were writing urban comedies (which Shakespeare never wrote), Shakespeare's plays were set in royal palaces and in various cities in Italy. Arbella led a list of prominent writers in Shakespeare's time, a list on which William Shakspere was nowhere to be found. Shakespeare's plays are famous for their strong women. I submit that's because the person who wrote these plays was a woman. Many of Shakespeare's plays were first performed before the Queen, also. None of his peers' plays enjoyed such a venue on their opening nights.

My Arbella is raring to go. She hears my fingers scratching my right ear, and she is alert to taps on the knob on my skull. Tomorrow in less than 10 hours, Doogie Howser will turn her on, and as my mother used to say, "we shall see what we shall see."

O Canada!

I got this notice when I joined Connect2Canada this a.m. The invitation came in the monthly Canadian Arts newsletter of the Canadian Embassy here. The newsletter tells of all the Canadian performers and artists whose work will be available or on display in DC in the month of April.

Meanwhile, just look at these eye openers that were in this morning's communique!

*Canada is the United States' largest source of imported crude oil, more than Saudi Arabia, and Canada has the world's second largest proven oil reserves. Much of that oil is located in the Alberta oilsands, an area that contains at least 175 billions of recoverable oil located under an area approximately the size of New York State (more information).


*We have rotated 15,000 troops in the war on terror, over 40,000 troops through the Balkans since 1991, committed $300 million dollars to reconstruction in Iraq, and are deploying a 2000 troop strong Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, one of the most dangerous regions in Afghanistan, making Canada the second largest military presence in Afghanistan -- second only to the United States (more information).

*None of the September 11, 2001 terrorists entered the United States from Canada (more information).

*Canada-U.S. trade, at more than $1.5 billion US per day, supports over five million jobs in the United States, and two million in Canada. Our shared Smart Border helps ensure the safe and secure trade of over 200 million border crossings per year (more information).

An indigestion of greenness....

...One must have constantly before one's eyes the very presence of life. the sky, the earth, a piece of paper, a passing figure, a cobweb. That is why one must not discriminate between things. There is no rank among them. One must take one's good where one finds it....

The painter passes through states of fullness and of emptying. That is the whole secret of art. I take a walk in the forest of Fontainbleu. There I get an indigestion of greenness. I must empty this sensation into a picture. Green dominates in it. The painter paints as if in urgent need to discharge hiimself of his sensations and his visions....

It is not what the artist does that counts, but what he is.... What interests me is the uneasiness of Cezanne, the real teaching of Cezanne, the torments of van Gogh, that is to say the drama of the men.


-from Picasso's Guernica: the Genesis of a Painting (U. of California, 1962)