the universe in my head

neil talking to the sun

I was thinking, walking with Neil on the Maui shores, about how I move around in my head to different subjects, like "Emily" and "my job" and stuff. And each subject has its own associations and related sensory and informational data. All of which are memories, i.e., relevant to what's in my head, but not relevant to this place at this time.

So I was thinking about how the world according to me is actually contained inside my brain (in what form, I don't know; I think that was an earlier post that never got satisfactorily answered), and my brain is in my head! Like, I already knew that the world as I see it is actually the world according to me, as opposed to you, but I never had thought about the physical location of those ideas. My head! So I am seeing a tree, and not only am I seeing the tree according to my visual and cognitive interpretation, but the tree itself is entirely (physically) separate from that interpretation.

neil with a rainbow

It was a nice musing, because it illustrated how if, at a given time, I shift the way I choose to see or focus on something in my brain (e.g., Do I care about this person? Can I forget this information?), it changes only what I am thinking about at that time anyway. Only the way things are arranged in my head.

I am still working on application. Maybe when I watch the State of the Union address tonight I will first try to erase any preconceived ideas from my mind and give the president a blank slate, although not yelling after 5 minutes may be well beyond my philosophical ken.

the week in review

today I worked 7.5 hours. I have new insight into the orientation difficulties that plague so many of my patients.

"Neil, did you get a chance to go to the bank?" "It's Sunday, Diana." "Oh yeah." "Did you check the mail already?" "Mrs. Pumpkington, it's Sunday." "Oh yeah." "Today was tough, but at least tomorrow's Tuesday." "No it's not."

Oh yeah.

Yesterday we went to a tai chi workshop aaaaall day. I learned how to respond, not react, and neil observed and kept me company. Tai chi is mostly about harnessing the life force and listening to a bird 100 miles away and yielding if somebody tries to hit you.

Then we went to a barbecue and met a couple of realtors near a really cool portable fire pit. Then we saw Match Point, which was OK. Neil was interested in its angle on the Crime and Punishment story.

Thursday we went to a wake for the spouse of my coworker. We went to their wedding in October. He killed himself and I found it interesting that his casket was open. Also we found it interesting that spirited Christian somebody-died rock (as opposed to Christian death rock, which could be more interesting) was blaring the whole time.

Surreal.

I don't remember what happened earlier than that -- oh yeah, on Weds. we attended and attempted to register for a Final Cut Pro (digital video editing) class at Pima Community College. Alas, the room was bursting with other kids who wanted to do the same, so we'll have to wait. At least we're officially registered at PCC.

west wing is ending and diane lane is only 41.

we're making a wedding blog but it's not ready yet.

i don't think God wants me to work on Sundays anymore.

Anyone who wants to be a marine or a pilot can try this.

bye.

dues to leave my shoes on

does anyone else find this prospect a tad nausea-inducing?

sort of

funny. you might also enjoy this if you know what sabermetrics is without having to click here first. update: ok, more links expunged from the bookmarks vault at here npd winter paring expo: m o r e .

smell you later

!

2005 movies

Neil	Diana
1. A History of Violence	1. A History of Violence
2. Last Days	2. Cache
3. Cache	3. Brokeback Mountain
4. Tropical Malady	4. Last Days
5. The Ister	5. Batman Begins
6. Match Point	6. Match Point
7. The New World	7. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
8. Brokeback Mountain	8. Wedding Crashers
9. Batman Begins	9. The New World
10. Wedding Crashers	10. Syriana
11. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan	11. The Squid and the Whale
12. The 40-Year-Old Virgin	12. Munich
13. The Squid and the Whale	13. Broken Flowers
14. Syriana	14. The Chronicles of Narnia
15. Me and You and Everyone We Know	15. Hitch
16. Munich
17. Broken Flowers
18. The Chronicles of Narnia
19. Hitch
20. Sin City

transcendent "timewaster"

i just spent roughly the last hour here. i recommend some accompanying listening selections. anything will do, really. even mr. bojangles seems to heighten the experience! thanks beck.com links page!

today

something for the rest of us?

Christians are suckers

Excerpted from Jonathan Safran Foer's "A Beginner's Guide to Hanukkah" in yesterday's NYT: Christmas Christmas is a holiday that Christian children celebrate because they aren't Jewish. Instead of eight nights of presents, there is only one. And instead of getting to eat delicious and nutritious latkes, they are forced to drink something called nog, which isn't even a real word. They touch each other's sweaters while they sing together around pianos, they get into the "spirit," and here's another bad thing about Christmas that should make Jewish children excited about celebrating Hanukkah: Christmas trees are a terrible fire hazard.

news

do you believe ?

Death by Bill O'Reilly

Christian or secularist. Freedom lover or liberal. Strong and steady or radical. You are either ONE or the OTHER and there is NO IN-BETWEEN.
Unless you want to be a flip-flopper.
Where could we go on a honeymoon that is very relaxing and somewhat-to-very exotic and not too expensive and will allow us to go to Wis. after 10 days?
The air this morning was moist and cool. I could smell creosote (not the smell of choice to city boys like Jon) and see clouds low in the southwest, probably making fog. Walking to work was nice, especially since our census dropped yesterday. Read: work became less frantic.

A person said "nipped it in the butt" to me today. Three times.

I sort of want to see Good Night and Good Luck, The Producers, Narnia, and the gay cowboy movie whose name I forget.

I wish someone would tell me how to thread a bobbin. I am running out of options.

And time. There's a Hans Christian Andersen story where the maiden has to weave, um, jackets for the seven brothers out of flax before the evil stepmother's curse will turn them all to swans. And she doesn't quite finish in time and one of the brothers has a wing. Or something.

Anybody that teaches me to thread a bobbin will save certain parties from the same fate.

Neil: George Bush would be a good president of a small community college.

Employment: A Song. A Poem. A Proclamation.

Oh there are noooo jobs in Tu-ucson/
And the streets are paved with cheeeese.
-Neil Godfrey, Dec. 4, 2005

Think I'll work retail
and save up for a trailer.
It's the Tucson way.
-Neil Godfrey, Dec. 4, 2005

I'm going to sleep my way to the top.
And I mean that literally.
-Neil Godfrey, Dec. 5, 2005

i'm sick of looking at larry king...

so i'm white spacing him out. larry king can now be seen below the fold.

From National Review

Okay before I get coffee, I thought this vital report from Moscow needed to be posted. From a reader: Here in Moscow we get Larry King a day late, and I occasionally watch him for his unique brand of hard hitting journalism. The other day, with Martha Stewart as his guest, he actually bowled me over with what must have been his trademark wit back in his heyday a hundred years ago. He asked if she was dating (this is a 64 year-old woman, mind you), and added that " . . we went out once." She quickly corrected, "We went out TO DINNER." "Yeah, but we went out." She mumbled, flustered, and Larry turns to the camera and says: "I DATED A CON!". He was back to his old self minutes later with "Why do we like cookies?"

today

Neil has more patience than I, as evidenced by his tolerance for call-ins on C-Span. I hope I get out of work early tomorrow. Inspired by Ryan, we're eating bacon for supper.

lifestyles of the rich and famous

Our apartment. Roger Ebert is really thin. I learned last night at Andrew's weenie roast that rocks have cleavage. Whoo-hoo! Sara and Erik are getting married here in June.When I ask Neil what he wants for graduation, he says underoos. A patient with dementia told me the menu option of chicken parmesan with mediterranean vegetables sounded "too esoteric."























I want to see what happens in an '06 Casey-Santorum race. I want to see what kind of national publicity a pro-life Democrat gets. I want to see a national conversation about the fact that many Democrats, even those who support legal abortion rights, do not think abortion is good or favorable. I wonder if tensions could rise between moderate Democrats and the hardcore abortion-rights groups (e.g., NARAL) who give the Dems big money. I would looooove for abortion rights not to be a politically polarizing issue.










Last night I petted a lot of dogs at Andrew's. Neil says my creative musical setup is an i-pod wannabe. Neil is beautiful. So is Sarah's blanket.

in response to emily

I got a haircut last tuesday. and neil and I rearranged the furniture! I like it a lot. and I set up a sewing machine but I'm afraid to see if it works because there is a 75% chance that I didn't thread the needle correctly. we have cream soda in the refrigerator. neil is a star. we like to go to dunkin' donuts on the weekend. after thanksgiving, I think, neil has a week and a half left of college before finals! my friend anne dreamed last night that she was on her home street in california and a 30 ft. crocodile emerged from nowhere and ate the neighbor. I dreamed about wheel of fortune. neil will come home soon and I will make him pizza.

"I don't want to blog anymore. My life is too boring."

-d

roller-coaster principle

My job can be emotionally stressful. In order to provide cognitive therapy you have to relate to where the patient is coming from so you can build a bridge to better thought organization. Relating to patients often involves talking to their spouses, especially if the patients have expressive aphasia and can't do a very good job of speaking for themselves. At other times it involves talking to their parents. Either way, you get a sense of the patient's life, interests and home environment and can thus make therapy practical. So. That means that at any given time there's a bunch of people that you pretty much don't know, who are of no relation to you, and who you will never see again after the next 1-6 weeks, but who you care about. And caring is hard because it's not like your emotional reservoir has an on/off switch (OK, maybe "yours" does ... maybe my casual use of second person wasn't the best idea). It's hard to sit with a fairly young senior citizen who, despite maximum cues, insists on confusing his daughter with his dead wife, and then working with a hit-and-run victim who is your little sister's age and lists her favorite thing to do as "heroin," and then hearing the father of a 20 year old who is learning to eat again say he doesn't know if he can review positive events from his son's life with him (recommended, to work on memory and orientation) because everything his son ever did was worthless. During the workweek I feel perpetually wide-eyed and braced, like, OK, I'm doing my job, I'm on the move, if you have a problem yo I'll solve it, but I'm not going to allow a feeling to form. At work I am better able to witness the importance of family and/or a supportive community. Imagine, if you are old and have a stroke and there is no one to look after your interests! You could lose the ability to talk and/or efficiently process information and wind up in some marginal adult care home for the last 20 years of your life! Chilling. And a host of faithful pets won't cut it because many facilities don't allow them. At work also I am forced to develop coping strategies. Sometimes my brain repeats "not your problem" like a mantra, when a patient's situation threatens to push buttons and stroke heartstrings. Last week I remembered my favorite strategy for dealing with life in general, realized a few years ago during a rousing ride on the Belmont Park roller coaster with Eliza. What's the best way to reduce the impact during the ride? What if I relax my limbs? It worked, which was really cool, although my screams were somewhat less inspired. "Relax" is something that is much easier said than done, but "relax your limbs" seems more attainable and also feels good. So between caring and trying not to feel and teaching people to talk and thinking desperately about roller coasters, I often come home to Neil a wide-eyed, hyperverbal puddle of mush. But at least it's a learning experience.

spot the fake post

here.