Fragments

I guess what I've got going on right now is a little bit of a measured rest.  I have very little actual work today, to accomplish during my preparatory time, so I am listening to music and letting my thoughts wander and stray.  I decided to go ahead and write.  If I am going to let my thoughts out into the universe, I may as well write them and practice what I need to practice.

1.  I spent the day in Salt Lake, yesterday, at various locations related to the Veteran's Hospital.  My headaches have taken a weird shift in their appearance, interrupting a daily routine I have known for more than a decade, so I needed to re-connect with the VA and start down the path of taking care of this. 

Now, having been away from the VA for more than 12 years, I needed to go through my entire narrative for the new nurse practitioner, who is going to be my primary care-giver at the VA.  She had to do a lot of typing and she asked a lot of really good questions.  However, that is probably the best of my experience in coming back to the VA for help.  At almost every other level it is a royal pain in the ass, and I have to tell you, I am already remembering why I thought my departure so many years ago was not all that bad of a thing.  Everything from take a number for almost every small procedure, to witnessing the golden standard for bureaucracy at every turn is par for the course when dealing with the VA.  It's a middle management world, and woe be the person who forgets that little morsel of truth while running the gamut of actually accomplishing anything there within.

2.  I spent a considerable amount of time with a childhood friend yesterday, too.  It was actually want made about a fourth of my dealings with the VA tolerable.  We told each other stories and had a good time talking about old friends and new developments in our lives.  One of the establishing themes of our time together was how we both had learned how to stop worrying so much about the things in life which make us angry.  Now you know I constantly worry about my writing and my varied ability to effectively communicate with my poetry, but that isn't what I am talking about here.  I am talking about the issues of being people, living and loving the people in our lives, and accepting the reality of what we have made of our worlds.  It was a wonderful time and I am so happy to have been able to re-connect on that level.

3.  I am back here at school, looking around and I am feeling renewed for the new semester.  With the 40 minutes I have left in my prep period, I am feeling pretty good about the world in general.  Becky and I are gearing up for some major changes and there will be more on that later, but I am starting to work out a lot of other issues and get some new energy from them.  My biggest concern is keeping the energy I need for my current book project.  I have pretty much written off Sailing this Nameless Ship as a failed diversion.  I will count it as therapy, but it will more than likely never be published.    Not that I wouldn't love to see it in print, but I have pretty much figured out that nobody likes it enough to see it published.  I am certain some out there will say I just need to re-imagine the manuscript in some manner, give it an overhaul, but I know better, and if I don't, then it will take a miracle to convince me otherwise.

4.  Somewhere lies the answer.