July 6, 2008
Flickering Glimpse
So, I hate memes. But I saw this one on If Mom Says OK and promptly swiped it.
What you do:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into this mosaic maker.
My Answers:
1. What is your first name? Robin
2. What is your favorite food? buffalo chicken
3. What high school did you go to? lamar
4. What is your favorite color? green
5. Who is your celebrity crush? gina gershon
6. Favorite drink? diet vanilla pepsi
7. Dream vacation? Ireland
8. Favorite dessert? pixie stix
9. What you want to be when you grow up? graphic designer
10. What do you love most in life? skateboarding
11. One Word to describe you. me
12. Your (blog) name. Red Monkey
Oh. The interesting thing? Some of these bear no resemblance to the word I originally searched for (particularly, #2!!), but I picked the the image that most matched up to me rather than the specific word picked.
Click to bigify:
1. The Long Arm of the Law, 2. Love changes everything----SCMP, 3. Lamar High School Cheerleaders, July 4 Parade, Arlington, 4. ♫ YO Yo yo, 5. Gina Gershon 6, 6. SirMimseyPepsi, 7. Rossbeigh Long Exposure, 8. Addicted, 9. if you're on fire..., 10. Me Then (1978) and Now (2008), 11. That's, uh, some lightning you've got there., 12. Douc Langur
Posted by Red Monkey at 3:12 PM
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July 4, 2008
Homes
We lived in Albuquerque for all of about 3 months when I was 3 years old and I've never been quite able to shake the New Mexico dust off of me since. Don't get me wrong, I will always, always be drawn to the Austin area ... it always gives me a feeling of home and safety. But New Mexico - more specifically the Dinetah - touches me on a level too deep for words to explain, even to myself.
This last month has been something of a blur with the "sprained" leg that turned out to be badly broken, surgery and then just a couple of days later, I spent three days in a mini-van being driven first to Terre Haute, Indiana ... Oklahoma City ... and finally Dzilth-na-o-dith-hle in northwestern New Mexico.
As we left South Bend, we wound up traveling through four of seven towns I lived in growing up. First, we drove through Carmel, Indiana; then Oklahoma City; Amarillo, Texas; and finally through Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Out of all of those places I lived, only two have really grabbed me and said Home. And even with as glad as I was to finally reach our house and sleep in my own futon (since I can't really elevate my leg in the bed), the places that I have most felt a connection have been in Austin, Texas ... and the Dinetah.
Austin is easy for me to understand. Rolling, green hills ... creeks, rivers, swimming holes. Despite some rotten events that happened to me there, it always felt safe to me.
The Dinetah, on the other hand, is harder for me to understand. When we first began traveling through the mesas last week, I instantly wondered what it would have been like ... to be the first Europeans coming through this area on horseback. No maps, no roads, paved or otherwise. How to find water? Did they notice the elevation (even before climbing to one of the mesas) or was it gradual enough that they simply wondered why they needed to drink more water and felt less endurance than normal? Or was it gradual enough that they adjusted as they went?
And can you imagine riding a horse through the mesas and having the Navajo ... or the Pueblo ... or the Apaches ... after you?
At first blush, the area seems desolate. But as I sat out on the "porch" off the dorm kitchenette one evening, I realized that the area was all green. Pale sage greens, but green and teeming with life, nonetheless. Very different from the brilliant greens of Austin - or the cornstalk greens of Indiana.
Was it just an overwhelming sense of history (with a large dash of childish romanticism) that made me connect to the mesas so long ago? Was it the fact that it was so different from everything else I knew? Or was it, perhaps, simply the fact that the mesas themselves looked like such fun and such a challenge for me to climb? Or was it something else altogether?
I have no idea.
The strangest thing for me on the trip was realizing just how many "homes" I have. Austin will always feel like home to me. And there were certainly times whilst on the trip - particularly when I was too hot to sleep with my blasted leg elevated properly - when I wished to be "home" in Indiana, despite the fact that I shudder to ever think of this state as "home."
Strangest of all was the feeling of being "almost home" whilst at the school on the rez. I was there ... but "home" was just out of reach, complicated by my current situation which made it more difficult for me to socialize - between the altitude and the broken leg, I was mostly stuck in the dorm for the week. I couldn't explore the landscape and could barely make my way to the cafeteria in the next building (and I couldn't do that without someone to help me up the stairs). And then, there was my shyness as well. It's hard to connect with the community which makes a place a home if you're so afraid you'll "bother" them or annoy or offend, that you can't hardly speak. And, of course, I have such a garbled historical knowledge of the people and the area - but history is not today and cultures are fluid and mercurial.
I suppose, really, this trip to the Dinetah was much like a trip my mom and sister and I made to Austin the summer after I graduated from high school. I was ecstatic to be "going home" if only for a few days. I demanded that we drive by the old house ... and we saw it from the street. So very close to being "home," only unable to walk inside to the place that had been home for us in the 70s. Like that time in Austin, this past week in New Mexico, I was there and not there
Of course, I still don't know what calls me to the Dinetah ... just that I had a brush with another one of my chosen homes ... that I'll need to return again one day when my body is healed and I'm better able to set aside my doubts and fears and fully step into that feeling of home, less afraid of making mistakes, less afraid of being thought of as overly earnest and one of "those" biligaana.
I'm afraid this post is still a bit of a garbled mess despite the fact that I've been working on it for days. But I've decided that it simply represents the garbled mess in my mind when I think about last week - or when I think about the concept of "home." And, really, what better post is there for the U.S.'s Independence Day except ruminating about home, ethnicity, culture and landscape?
Posted by Red Monkey at 4:53 AM
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July 2, 2008
Dzilth-na-o-dith-hle
Just a camera-phone pic ... click to bigify.
Posted by Red Monkey at 8:59 PM
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Vacations and Photos
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June 19, 2008
Just a Sprain
To the left of each red line is a break. I can't see the break on the smaller bone for all the hardware that's in there, but there's at least one if not two on that bone as well.
And I thought this mess was just a sprain ....
Posted by Red Monkey at 12:58 AM
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People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken
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June 18, 2008
Balance
Surgery is over and done with - a plate on each bone and more screws than I want to think about. I am now truly screwed. (The obvious sometimes must be said.) I'm moving around much better now that my foot is actually connected to my leg again.
I worried most of yesterday about whether or not I'd really be able to make the mission trip to the Dinetah (Navajo lands) in New Mexico. The discharge process was long and ridiculously drawn out, leaving my leg down and poorly balanced for far too long. By the time I got home, every slight jar hurt like hell and I didn't think I'd be able to handle the 3 day drive.
Today, however, things are much better. The only real problem is when my muscles jerk. You know, you've seen the crazy commercials about Restless Leg Syndrome, right? It's one of those disorders that people make fun of because it just sounds so stupid.
Unless you're trying to sleep and your body jerks you awake. And then you try to sleep and your body jerks you awake.
Now think about your newly operated on leg ... and the muscles twitching or jerking. The movement would wake you up anyway, but add the pain to that and ... whooooo boy-howdy, buckeroo, that ain't the way to get good rest. Luckily the pain lasts just a moment and the aching that comes after doesn't last too long either.
Tomorrow afternoon we're having friends come over to watch the cats ... and we're heading out to the Dinetah. I'm so excited I could just explode. Of course, with all the mess the last two weeks, we're not as prepared as we'd like to be and sadly this means the other half is running around like crazy trying to get everything set. I feel horrible because I need all sorts of stuff out of what we've taken to calling the "disaster room" and I can't get in there to get what I need. I've got to finish printing out some references to work on some art whilst I'm gone. (Not that I'll have much free time except during the van drive.) Then she'll have to go back in the room, dig out the good resume paper so I can print out 3 copies of my resume and 3 cover letters so I can send those out while I'm in New Mexico so I can keep my name out and about.
We've got to make sure the doc called in another refill on the pain meds - because it would be BAD to run out whilst on the trip. Hopefully I won't need more than what I already have ... but I don't wanna chance some 25-30 hours in the van on the way home without pain meds. So, I have to make sure the doc calls it in - and the other half picks it up. We need a couple of house keys to give to the friends who are going to stay here whilst we're gone. I should get to the bank one last time and I need to snag a couple of disposable cameras. And the other half needs to dig through the disaster room to pull out my backpack.
I hate relying on someone else. I'm not good at it. I can't help but feel guilty if someone else "has" to do something for me.
But for the next 10 days, I suppose I'll be attempting to learn the balance between helping others ... and letting others help me. Probably be even more of a learning experience for me this way than it would have been otherwise.
At any rate ... it'll be quiet here for the next 10 days. For the first time in years, I'll be completely disconnected from the computer. No 'net access where I'm going. No email. No web. No blogs. No BBC Online.
Me, off-line for 10 days. Wish me luck.
Posted by Red Monkey at 6:22 PM
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Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity
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Struggles
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