10:30 a.m., Sunday

Only 10:30, and it's already been an exciting day here on the Stick Farm. Thank God for my husband Rex. I never would have had the stomach to clean up dog vomit at 7 a.m., even though I was the one who gave them Kayti's uneaten (and two days out of the fridge) turkey sandwich about 15 minutes earlier.

I woke up at about 6 a.m. A lone rooster was crowing. I got out of bed. Kayti rolled over, asked in a half-asleep voice, "What was that hideous noise that woke me up?" and burrowed back under the covers. (Last night she said to a shih tzu that was sitting up begging for food: "Be off with you!" Think she's watching too much "Robin Hood"?)

OK, this may not seem that exciting to you. But compare it to this:

A few days ago I was listening to public radio on my way in to work, and the classical-music show was just beginning. (Classical music shows are always just beginning on MPBN. There is too much classical music on MPBN. MPBN, are you listening?) Anyway, the announcer exclaimed, "This is a very exciting day for us here at MPBN!" I was on the edge of my seat. Big grant from a rich foundation? Programming overhaul? Pulitzer Prize for a news story?

"This is the 100th anniversary of (something obscure about somebody obscure)," she exulted.

Talk about feeling cheated! I think dealing with dog vomit beats that, so don't give me any flak about leading you on.

Is Anybody Out There?

I'm thinking maybe there's something wrong with my Analytics tracker. How could I not have a single visitor since before Christmas? Or has the world actually ended without my noticing it?

So please, if you visit, leave a comment, even if it's just, "I was here" by Anonymous. Thanks.

The End of the World

I read the other day that our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy are going to crash into each other a lot sooner than expected. Instead of 10 billion years, the timetable is now two billion to five billion years.

Think of it. Imagine you're around for it. Imagine it happening tomorrow. The first clue: We'd get a call at 6 a.m. that school was cancelled. Kayti would be delighted. That's worth the end of the world right there.

I'd have to have coffee before turning on the tube. Even the end of the world doesn't change that. "Good God, Rex," I'd yell. "Come look at this!"

We'd sit on the edges of our chairs, watching talking heads on TV bringing us updates on how close we are to annihiliation.

"This just in," says one, turning to Camera B. "Pluto has collided with Androcles II, glanced off and is heading for Neptune. Andromeda planet Nebuchudnezzar just whizzed by Earth, and its gravitational pull has caused a tidal wave that has engulfed Asia." She looks into the lens. "I guess it's bye-bye, China," she says, with a highly inappropriate laugh. She tidies her papers. "And now, sports cancellations with Phil."

All we can do is sit there and keep our fingers crossed that nothing slams directly into Earth or pulls a Nebuchudnezzar anywhere near the Western Hemisphere.

In a way, it would be kind of fun to say, when your kid spills her orange juice and starts crying, "Oh, honey, it's the end of the world." Or your husband experiences ED, you don't try to make him feel better -- you turn over and say, huffily, "Yes it IS the end of the world."

And if something does hit Earth, or our place on it, spot on, will it be an instant death, or will we suffer through mayhem and destruction before freezing to death or suffocating in the thick blanket of space dust enveloping the Earth? Keep those cyanide capsules handy!

I think the only thing that will survive the collision is the billing department at Central Maine Power Company. Worlds may implode, but CMP will go on overcharging us.

Old Men

At one point in my life, I was in love with a man who lived in a Toyota motor home. He was insanely insecure about our relationship. He once told me he wanted me to get really fat, so fat that I wouldn't be able to squeeze out the camper door and run away.

I think about that now, as I avoid the treadmill and beg my husband for yet another piece of chocolate (he keeps it hidden in the cellar). Would I now fit through the camper door? I think I would, despite these giant bazoombas that mushroomed in the course of 3.5 years of breast-feeding my child.

Anyway, I did squeeze through the door and run away, not because I didn't want to be with this man, but because he was, if you'll forgive the repetition, insanely insecure about our relationship. He said if I was drowning and he couldn't swim and he had no means of saving me, he would jump in the water and drown with me. (Apparently he couldn't envision life without me. So how's he been surviving these past 18 years? How come when I finally gave up on him, he didn't kill himself?)

There were so many puzzles in that relationship. He got angry with me for the weirdest reasons. One day, when I was in Savannah and he was in New York, he got mad at me because I wasn't home when he said he'd call. Woooooo, big sin! There's cause for punishment!

One day when he was railing at me because I didn't tell him often enough that I loved him, I said to him in exasperation, "Why don't we just consider it a given that we love each other?"

God, he drove me crazy. Literally. After I got away from him, it took me more than a decade to get past his negative, party-pooping influence. Now, had I only recognized right away that that's exactly what he was -- a party pooper -- maybe I could've saved myself years of sorrow.

As it was, I finally righted myself in one fell swoop. The magic letters: EMDR. I can't even remember what the letters stand for, but the procedure, which involves recalling bad experiences while listening to a rhythmic beeping, supposedly helps you properly "process" the experiences so you can put them on the shelf and be done with the emotions associated with them.

I was almost instantly relieved. I could once more see a Toyota camper approaching and not feel pure fright. I could reread this guy's letters and not feel like I should write back in a futile effort to explain myself. I stopped trying to "understand" his insecurity, and I stopped blaming myself for it. I could finally see him for the self-congratulatory, alternately mean and fawning viper he really is.

For the record, I am married to a man who has no such insecurity. I'm sure Rex would love it if I were model-thin and every man I passed was wading ankle-deep in a puddle of drool. He knows I'm happy with him.

What a relief!

Now if my parakeet would just shape up, life would be perfect.

Death by Parakeet

Well, it's Jan. 1, 2009, and this blogger is being quite neglected by her disloyal readers. The line showing visitors is flat since Dec. 22. What, Christmas is for your FAMILY or something? Get with the program! Enlightenment knows no vacation!

Speaking of Christmas, the whole tradition seemed superfluous this year. We went to bed Christmas Eve and I wondered what was so special about a few hours that we had to wait till Christmas morning to open presents. Kayti knows we are "Santa Claus," plus we buy presents all through the year, so it just seems dumb to observe the holiday. Do people really need the reminder to honor love, hope and charity? Of course not! People to whom love, hope and charity are important are honoring them all year round, and people who don't, well, they just don't! So why try to force them?

I love my family and friends and people in general (except anyone who has the audacity to move within 300 yards of my property). I don't need a stupid designated day to focus a little thought on them.

Bah, humbug.

Moving along, New Year's Eve is even stupider! It's just an excuse for a party, and I don't need an excuse for a party. If you want to drop in at my house any day of the year and party, I'm game!

...

My new parakeet has a very sharp beak.
I know this because if I give him the opportunity, he will sink it into whatever part of my body presents itself. He hangs on, too. It's not just a quick little nip. I have to pull his beak open to free myself.

I was holding him in front of me one day and the thought occurred to me that if he leaped up and bit my neck and hit the jugular vein, I might die! Jeez, I'm sorry, but that's almost as bad a thought as the fear I have of perishing by my head falling off. It's funny in a very morbid way, though, and if it should happen, I give you permission to laugh about it at my funeral (or wherever you happen to be; can't count on you folks to come to my funeral. You won't even come to my blog!).

May 2009 be your best year ever!

Love,

Debbi

Liver Let Live

There was a story in the paper (hmmm, what will newspapers be called when there are no paper newspapers to be had?) the other day about a son who had donated his liver to his father. Then the son's liver grew back, and they both are healthy and happy.

I was thinking about this story as I drove to my new job at Current Publishing, which puts out six weekly papers -- and they still ARE papers -- in southern Maine. One thought led to another, meandering around stem-cell organ growth and hip replacements and cosmetic surgery and cloning, until they crystallized into the realization that eventually, if the human race doesn't wipe itself out, brain transplants are actually going to happen.

Why not? It will be as simple as, say, putting a new engine in your car. Just place brain in sawed-off skull, match up the dangling vesicles to their proper counterparts (optic nerve, brain stem, spinal cord), tighten up a few clamps and away we go!

Where will the bodies come from, you ask? Well, of course, cloning will advance to the point where it can be selective, so you can clone bodies that have no brains. Picking a new body will be like walking into Target and buying a dress off the rack. The only size you have to worry about is brain-pan size. You could even clone your own body when you're young and lithe, put it on ice, and get back into it when you feel your losing your looks.

Taken to an extreme, this could mean a lot of people choose a clone of the same person to "re-brain" in, so the people you meet on the street could look exactly like you. Bizarre! You could be in an orchestra where everyone looks exactly the same, but you all have different brains and different personalities.

It would certainly solve the dilemma of people who feel they're a different sex beneath their bodily trappings. Just put your brain into a clone of the opposite sex! No hormone treatments, no operations (except the brain transplant), no new "women" still looking like the men they once were!

I'm not trying to be funny here. I can see this is really going to happen, given enough time. You should trust me on this, too. I blogged before computers were invented. I drove beaters all my life, before used cars became fashionable. I'm a visionary. I am the great and powerful Debbi Hardy. Don't forget it.

Tromboning

I made the mistake of saying to my husband today that maybe I should just quit trying to regain my trombone-playing prowess.

"Give it up!" he exploded. "Take up something else that doesn't require an embouchure! Because you don't have one!"

I have to admit, I was a little taken aback by his vehemence. Mulling his reaction, I played something resembling a song. When I was done, I said, "That sounded OK, didn't it?"

He said, "Yes, but it gives me a headache."

His comments were closely followed this evening by a conversation with my sister Midge (or Margaret, as she likes to be called since she "grew up") in which she said, "You don't have the right kind of lips for trombone."

I was kind of taking these people seriously until I realized that a) my husband can't get a decent sound out of a PIANO, for heaven's sake! and b) Midge is a flute player. What the hell do THEY know about playing trombone?

If there is one thing I have an abundance of, it is determination. When I was breast-feeding my daughter and got that sore-nipple condition (I forget the name of it, but it was REALLY PAINFUL every time she latched on), I didn't give up! When my VW bus blew its engine out in New Mexico and I had to quit school and go to work to put food on the table (oatmeal for Thanksgiving!), I didn't give up!

And amazingly enough, it appears that I'm not going to give up on trombone. I kind of wish I could, but I have a feeling I'm still going to be trying even when I'm sitting in a wheelchair at the nursing home. I'll play "Joy to the World" at the nursing home Christmas talent show. And all the other residents, even the deaf ones, will be plugging their ears and shouting, "Give it up! Give it up!"

I've thought a lot about when things started going downhill. It was when I was in music school at USM, after I came back from my exchange experience in New Mexico (where, incidentally, I developed a post-nasal drip). As the school year progressed, I got worse and worse. At one point, my teacher told me to take a week off from practicing. He apparently thought I was doing too much.

Taking a week off didn't help. But talk about determiniation: I think it was sheer will that got me through my senior recital.

Over the years, I've tried to get back in shape. At one point, I was doing pretty well. Then one night, I had to play the solo in "Marie" several times. My lips just weren't ready for that high C. The next day, they were like sails flapping in the wind. I had no control whatsoever.

The big question is: Can that control be regained? If it's possible, then I'm not wasting my time. If it isn't possible, how do I find out?

I can say this: If I succeed, the world is going to know about it! I'll be the Obama of frustrated trombonists, shouting, "Yes we can!"