Lost Days?

Rumblings have reached me about postless days. Hmm, what would have filled them? The CPAP Mask Saga, aka Hannibal Lector Is Back (being closer to the reality than these smiling, mask-free folks; think Hannibal Lector trailing a 6-foot hose on the way to the bathroom at 3 a.m. rather than CPAP Barbie)? Somehow the photos in the ads are nowhere near the reality. But one wonders how much folks want to read of the nightly saga...... Of course, the news is that in the rainy, busy days, the nightly hook-up can serve as an exercise alternative, i.e., the yoga position "the Plough." But do you really want to know the whole story?

Or, there is the Saga of the Cute Phone, so tiny, so cute, and so free to call the East Coast. It was a 5-day wonder. Prepaid, like the one Jason Bourne grabs from a kiosk in The Bourne Ultimatum, but taking a couple of hours to "get"; Jason would have sneered and my readers would have been so bored.


Or, how much does everybody want to know about educational technology conferences on Second Life? My old friend and his wife took me to breakfast to catch up on teaching with computers in Hawaii and Japan, as well as the TCC conference. Had I blogged this 3-hour breakfast talk, would there have been yawns across the globe?

My friend's mother had just died and the funeral was the next day; his wife's mother had left her with unfinished grief. They both urged me to start building an online community for "caregiver re-entry" since there is nothing that can be found in support of this hard (for some) time. Lots of ideas here (like social bookmarking at del.icio.us), but again, caregiver recovery is one of those things like the event you had to have attended to get the point about.

So to avoid blog burn-outs of boredom from my readers, there has been a blessed (?) silence.....

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Torrential rains forecast yet again, strong winds---what better place to ride them out than the movie theater. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is marvelously filmed, and I am delighted the caregivers are given so much space and understanding. Even the one cradling Jean-Do in the swimming pool.....I do hope people honor the caregivers as a result! The movie is hard going, even knowing the book well, very hard going. Nothing is romanticized, and the respect to a weakened person is wonderful to see. But it leaves the day with a sober overcast, to match the sky here. I am so glad I went to see it--me and three other people in the theater. It is spare enough, like the book, for us to see everyone around the helpless person, and, hopefully, to be more aware!

The perfect antidote to T is for Trespass (Sue Grafton), with its portrait of a hurtful, greedy, dishonest caregiver. Trying to write a book review with the audiobook is hard, but there are 382 people on the library waiting list! But I see that a hard copy will cost a full $27! Maybe later.....

I still twist around in "caregiver re-entry," the central fact of my existence. Yes, I am trying to write an essay on this, too. Here, in beautiful downtown paradise, I feel so strongly the struggle to "be in the world." Part of the difficulty is that I don't know anyone who sees or understands that struggle, and how far it is to get back.

Jean-Dominique Bauby gave me courage!