- Today's Prompt:
Comment! Pick someone else’s blog post and write a comment to them. Write that comment as your post for today and link back to them to let them know you were inspired.
I went trawling for inspiration and found several blogposts that consisted of a comment/testimonial about some other blog, as opposed to a copy-paste of a comment the author had made on someone else's blog, as I had thought was obviously the prompt's intent. There were some other creative (mis)readings too. As an editor and linguist, I have a wry appreciation for ambiguity and the ambivalence it often betrays. When I feel cranky about ambiguity's misinterpretation--see it as obtuse, careless or self-serving, that's not a good sign. As we round the turn-point of these thirty days of posts, I'm out of sorts. My recent boomerang turn-point was eleven timezones of bereavement away--one click back from halfway round the world, one click back from halfway around the month also.
Around a turn-point? Mirror image. Boomerang. Negative. May I be negative and play against the rules just this once? (Often I play by the rules so imaginatively, I neglect to observe that not playing by the rules might be the most imaginative of all.) I plead--I am the MODEL commenter. I plead--I have commented on thousands of blogs with the devotion and attention of a fan. I plead--I have commented with devotion, attention, and generosity, sometimes daily for months on end, sometimes in nurturing an enduring and treasured friendship; sometimes, to be rudely and persistently ignored (I've learned some things--the latter circumstance hasn't happened for years, and I no longer consider daily commenting on every blog I glance over to be mandatory). I plead--as hard as I find reaching out and being outgoing "in real life" through air with no optic fibers, I am not challenged to go comment, to write out loud, to reach out.
If I fail to comment today, it's out of respect. Listen, I stink. My head's uncovered, which means it's picked raw, like all my fingertips. I'm cramping and tic'ing like a spasmoid puppet. I'm off my meds for the first time in a year (more?). The total absence of appetite is delightful (although my blood sugar still moves, inconveniently), and the almost total unmooring from linear time is soothing (although time still moves, too). The cramps and sweats and tics and halluc's are not soothing. Furthermore, I am not fit to be around people. I snapped at poor Phil-in-Oregon, although to be fair, this was on the third iteration of him calling, saying hello, and then "whoops, gotta go" literally in the same breath as that initial hello, with an intervening "hey, let's talk now" call that happened to come in right when I was trying to force down some dinner. I probably snapped a bit then, too. My wonderful friend who called this evening, and who said so much without too many words, who demonstrated such gorgeous empathy, thank you. The fact I can still track that empathy should in itself be ample motivation for me to get back on that lithium and ride that rock again stat.
If I do so, perhaps I can one day be the person who makes a phone call or leaves a comment at just the moment of grace for the other person. And if I do so, I have best chance of being ready for my upcoming Georgia trip without mishap. More motivation right there. I have an appointment tomorrow. Another provider I was supposed to contact a few days ago. Give me until Thursday, improvements starting even sooner.
This is a quilt of topics and yet I have responded to all of them deeply--there is a wildness here that didn't flow from the first crafted thoughts that made me stand still (and think of the Mad Men episode Sunday all about the letter and the spirit of the rules) and then the bursts of fireworks showing a hard hard row being hoed and the sharing of it all left me just looking at it and way too tired and strung out to be articulate. But so glad you were.
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