I think I'm doing this wrong...

So when I was ten years old or so, I was a playwright. I wrote a play about pilgrims and indians for my cousins and sister to perform on Thanksgiving. Now let's just excuse the patriarchal overtones of the condescending pilgrims and the vulnerable, grateful indians. I was ten, people! In fact, what I remember best about the actual performance of my play, which took place at the country club my family attended, (somehow talking about pilgrims and indians at a posh country club seems particularly dissonant to my adult self but anyhoo...) is that it had a lot of movement (I picture about twelve pre-teens shuffling around with "scripts" of spiral-bound notebook paper, patiently taking my fervent hissed and whispered direction - "no! over THERE!") and I had no self-consciousness about the whole thing at all. Brilliant disaster, indeed.

Then as a teen, that self-consciousness crept in, but truly, how could it have been stopped? The two go together like milk and cookies. So while I recognized that I wanted to keep a journal, I was constantly stopping because I was certain that I was not writing for myself, but rather for the fans that would ultimately unearth my insightful teenage memoirs years and years after my death. I know it's folly, but I'm just telling you how it was. I have a friend from college who has successfully kept a daily journal since he was a sophomore in high school. How envious I am of him, for his discipline and ability to see the bigger picture, what a treasure those are!

I think I have been plagued by the same doubts regarding any blog I would put together. As a recovering person, I am familiar with the phrase, "egomaniac with an inferiority complex" and that describes me to a T! I have interest in so many blogs that are out there, but I am not a mommy, I am not a chef, my life is a series of projects with loose ends and I can't imagine that anyone would want to read the musings of a daft individual like myself.

I have been getting some mentorship from a dear family member whose friendship and companionship has been so valuable to me throughout my whole life and specifically about my on-line persona. She has navigated the blogger waters and has carved quite a comfortable space for herself in this world. I admire her because she has a terrific, strong voice that I'd not heard before, but that I never doubted was there. She tells me, "You've gotta get blogging!" We are going to BlogHer together and I want to have some roots put down for myself in this world.

So I expect you will be hearing more from me, I just don't know what I will be saying yet.

Behind the Name

So, when I was thinking of the name for my blog, and I came up with 'chunkybumble', I Googled it just to make sure there were no other blogs with the same name - I think I would have been a little amazed if there had been. 'Chunkybumble' did yield several references to the Bee Girl from Blind Melon's classic video for "No Rain," and while this was not my inspiration, I feel enough of a kinship with the Bee Girl to be more than ok with the reference.

No, 'chunkybumble' is short for 'Chunky Bumble Bee."

When my sister and I were quite small, and my parents were still married (they divorced when I was five), they would go out on the weekends a lot. Enough to have a babysitter over often enough for my sister and I to become terribly attached to her. Her name was Elaine and I think she also babysat for my cousins who lived nearby. Elaine was only in high school but she had a confidence about her well beyond her years. Elaine would play with us and make us laugh, and she was a master at getting my sister and me to go to bed like no other babysitter before or since. We were the masters of the "I'm thirsty," "I'm scared" and the vague but often most successful, "I just can't sleep."

Elaine somehow crafted this tale about a man named Henry Cuesta, who was the lead clarinist for The Lawrence Welk Show. This timeless classic was on every Saturday at 7 for an hour. Elaine dubbed this man, "Chunky Bumble Bee" and sort of infused him with this magic vibe. He was a tall man, with a thick head of curly black hair and very thick black Clark Kent-type glasses. He would sway to the music and bring, dare I say it, a little soul to Lawrence Welk. I always thought he was a magical kind of guy.

Since he was the lead clarinist, there was a high likelihood that he would have a solo at some point each week. Elaine managed to convince my sister and me that he was playing for us, and that it was a lullaby of sorts. Once Chunky was done doing his thang, it was time for bed.

So then when I was thinking of the name for this blog I was trying to think of quirky, individualistic-types like I have become and strive to be. So I guess the Bee Girl fits, too. Mr. Cuestra died in the 1980's but I choose to keep his memory alive as the namesake for my blog. Here's to you, Chunky...

A 2009 Resolution List, for Posterity. Umm, and Posteriors.

OK, 2009. Here's the deal. Resolutions normally kick my ass, but I'm feeling, oh, I don't know, hopeful? Optimistic?

So, in the spirit of potential folly, I propose a few resolutions for myself for the New Year.

1. Start running again. You know you can do this, you've done it before, you know you feel a hell of a lot better than you have felt these last few years since you stopped. Just, err, do it.

2. Once and for all, confront your demons about this doctorate. Are you going to finish it, or are you going to stop here? If you stop, can you find any redemption from the efforts of the last six and a half years? You owe that much to yourself. Be strong.

3. Get organized. You have a tiny little house that could be quite charming if you didn't need hipwaders to slosh through all the CRAP. And now you have to share your abode with a dog. Don't think she hasn't noticed the clutter, by the way. You know you are a packrat. Be brutal and ditch some of this stuff, will you?

4. Stop being a doormat. You are a people pleaser and there are people in your life who know it. You are worth redefining yourself and your relationships. If they can't take it, screw 'em.

5. Find out where your money is going. Find out where your money is going so that you can hang on to as much of it as possible and you can have the freedom to spend it on what you want as often as possible. Like an iMac. And some new kitchen cabinets.

I should stop here, not because there aren't a million other ideas worth consideration and inclusion, but because I know myself well enough to know that my indian princess name should be Bites-Off-More-Than-Can-Chew.

So, blogs are cool that way. I can hold myself accountable as I truly have a plan IN WRITING this year. That's a first. Kind of psyched to get started. Happy New Year to you. See you on the other side.

NaNo NaNo

So the blog doesn't write itself, go figure.

Keeping a blog going requires discipline, which has never been a high priority of mine, despite high marks for the wonderful people around me who employ it in their lives.

It requires imagination, which I have in fleeting moments, but they generally happen when I'm in the car, or even worse, while I am at the bedside of a dying patient for whom I am caring. I have tried to start keeping Post-Its in random places throughout my life so that inspiration will not be lost (not at the patient bedside, of course, but you get the idea).

It requires a little bit of ego, or confidence, or chutzpah, that says, "I can talk about toast for three pages and SOMEONE out there will totally want to read the whole damn thing." But the beauty of the internet is that, Yes, Carolyn, there is.

I totally admire these brave souls who have engaged in this ritual NaNoMo thang, religiously blogging, or noveling, or knitting every day for the month of November. Maybe by the time next November rolls around, I will have gotten the hang of all this... We can hope.

Huh?

Thoughts are so muddled on this Election Eve, and I can think of several reasons for this including but not limited to:

1. Daylight Savings hangover (this is extremely underrated. I had a yawning fit at about 8:30 that was not to be believed)
2. Oversaturation of the feeble brain (mine) with too much election related information/propaganda. And I voted already.
3. Sister's jewelry party yesterday was quite a success but came with a stay at her home with her young, extremely active children and then a full day of planning, execution and clean-up.
4. Just because it's Monday

Am glad that I did already vote, because I can cross "the boredom and ennui which should not but does accompany waiting in line even for voting" off my list of downside items for tomorrow.

And they told two friends, and so on, and so on...

So I get my hair cut at a nursing home. Really. For my work, I go to visit and work with people on hospice who also happen to reside at nursing homes. About a year ago, I discovered that my boss gets her hair cut at one of them, and her hair is always exceptionally cute. Apparently in addition to the "live-in" clients, the salon also has a modest clientele out in the world. Why wouldn't they? A haircut costs ten bucks! So I started going there and it has worked out surprisingly well. Tonight I had company while I was getting my haircut: Dorothy, a resident at the facility had wheeled herself down to the salon from her suite and would be getting a wash and set as the final client of the day. Carrie, my friend and stylist, was originally going to see if Dorothy would be willing to come back when I was done, but I told her it was ok and we had a great conversation about hairstyles and how they have changed over the years, and how Dorothy used to wear her hair as a young woman versus now. Carrie finished my hair and I paid and bade farewell to the ladies. As I got in my car, I was thinking that sometimes it's just nice to have a little company, and realized that this may have been more true for me than for Dorothy.

Art - it's not just a person

So I belong to this very artistic family. My mother was in advertising in NYC in the 60's (can you imagine how cool, boggles the mind) and continues to paint and sketch and bead and knit. My sister decided while she was in high school that she wanted to be a glassblower and this dream was only squashed by a chronic heart condition. She nonetheless got an MFA in glass media and is in the process, ten years later, of growing a jewelry business with a lot of potential. In the meantime, I have dabbled on the very surface of some art, and am fascinated by the idea of art therapy, which we use in earnest at the hospice where I work. My mother and sister have been trying to encourage me to find my own artistic muse, but I am not built the way they are, with crazy amounts of confidence and the ability to "sell" the work to others. Maybe that's why I do like art therapy, where the art is most often done BY the artist and specifically FOR the artist. I've been knitting recently and when my sister generously offered to cut me in to her website by having me knit some hats and scarves, I graciously (I hope) declined. It is enough for me to see a positive result of something I have been working on. Maybe it's because of my work at hospice: since ALL of my patients ultimately die, I have to go on faith that I did good. With art of any media, having it right in front of me provides me with a great deal of fulfillment, letting me know that I did good, and maybe that's all I need.