Monday, December 20, 2010

Lunacy


For those of you staying awake tonight to watch the total lunar eclipse, here’s some scientific reading I found through a PubMed search about the effects of the moon on humans. In particular, I like the article by the Swiss researchers because they reference a John Lennon song in the title.

This topic of a full moon brings back memories of my first days on labor and delivery as a medical student. The nurse walked us to the blackboard where each patient’s name was written along with facts like the estimated date of confinement (the lingo is telling my age) and the number of centimeters of, well, never mind that detail. Anyway, the nurse explained that when the moon is full, the board fills up with patients.

My mother-in-law once told me that the phase of the moon at the time of your birth influences your personality, and if you’re into that kind of introspection, here’s more reading for you. Unless you already know the phase of the moon on your date of birth, you may need a chart like this one.

My lunacy impacts two areas of my life: writing and sleeping. Where the pen’s concerned, I’ve noted it’s difficult for me to write fiction unless there’s a waxing gibbous moon. I have trouble sleeping when there’s a full moon, and I relate that to the light that comes in my room despite very thick draperies. When we were students on call for obstetrics, we slept in a room with about ten beds and no windows. The room was called the womb. Since that time I’ve always had trouble sleeping with even the tiniest amount of light. In hotels I put socks and towels over clocks, cell phone chargers and anything else neon that might wake me. Around two o’clock in the morning, I usually wake to find a beam of red or green light somewhere that due vigilance missed.

I’m hoping I won’t be awake for the eclipse tonight. Good night!

And it's a strange lamp that lights the path back into memory/ Showing you not what you have but what you need.
Scrappy Jud Newcomb, "I Think of You"

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Blog Writer Plans Hibernation Day



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Doctoredits via Google account on the comment page for this blog



Blog Writer Plans Hibernation Day

Worthy Tips for Watching Television, Reading Random Stories, and Eating With Little to No Cooking


CARRBORO, North Carolina—December 14, 2010--I am officially hibernating. I last left home at 2:00 p.m. today and don’t have any plans until I fetch someone from the airport at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. And if I play this the right way, and Mother Nature decides to cooperate, I will be able to push that responsibility off onto my husband who’s a more suitable driver on an icy interstate.

Why hibernate? My fridge is stocked. My door is locked and my diamond is hocked? Not really.

I’m hibernating because I don’t like the cold unless it is accompanied by dramatic precipitation and Alpine terrain. I’m seriously living in the wrong country, and there’s nothing like December, January and February to remind me.

I’m hibernating because this is my coldest December on record in Carolina.

And what’s to do? Well, hm. I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps this idea is not fleshed out.

Wait a minute. I could work on my 2010 taxes. I could fill out next year’s financial aid application. I could write query letters for my novel manuscript. I could update my will and spring clean a few months early.

This hibernation needs more thought. I’m already afraid I may squander it fecklessly checking Facebook. Wait! Television might be the answer.

I know, I’ll place a glass of water and a Tupperware of gluten-free banana muffins bedside and stay under the covers all the way through American Morning, my favorite really early morning show. (Have you checked out the acoustic memories they play as they return from commercial breaks? Evidently, Jon Stewart doesn’t like them.) And this just in, John Roberts will not be on American Morning anymore after the month is up. What better justification for watching it past the point of 6:50 a.m. when I normally bail out of bed?

After American Morning I think I’ll walk to my sofa to watch The Holiday for the first time this year and the twentieth time of my life. When that’s over, I can boil some shrimp and green beans for four minutes while my potato absorbs microwaves for eight. Then I’ll take my tray to the sofa to watch last night’s PBS NewsHour minus the commercials. After lunch I can check my e-mail and see what has happened to my shares of GM stock that have a stop order on them.

Then I may have to finish "St. Mawr," the D.H. Lawrence story that Dr. Weldon Thornton recommended to me at a Derby party this year, before starting on Utopia by St. Thomas More (this may seem like a word association, but actually, utopia was the word of the day on WCHL this morning, and Dr. Wayne Pond told us the word originated with St. Thomas More).

Once I’ve tired of reading, I’ll make plans for my husband to cook my dinner when he comes home from the lab.

Individuals seeking ideas for a similar hibernation or needing a sound track for hibernation should contact me via the comments page.

-END-

Permission to reprint: You may reprint any two of the suggestions herein as long as you promise to wake me up when this cold weather is over.

Need an image? Evidently all my blog photos are being placed on Google Images by robots while I sleep. So far, it’s not keeping me up at night, and it probably won’t interrupt my hibernation.


I don’t want to get out of bed/ You don’t want to go out in the snow/ We don’t have to do the things Eskimos do/ Let’s have a hibernation day, me and you.

“Hibernation Day” Jars of Clay

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Westboro Baptist Church Needs to Turn, Turn, Turn Away from Elizabeth Edwards' Funeral



Two things are making me sick today: one is a gastrointestinal bug and the other is even crappier. WRAL is reporting that the Westboro Baptist Chuch (based in Kansas) is planning a protest at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards in Raleigh on Saturday.

These protesters would do well to listen to their acoustic memories, which have evidently short-circuited on the “do unto others” sound track. If that is the case, here is a song, based on Bible verse, for this misguided group.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)/ There is a season (turn, turn, turn)/ And a time to every purpose under heaven/ A time to build up, a time to break down/ A time to dance, a time to mourn/ A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.

-Pete Seeger, "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

Give us our time to mourn, Westboro! Turn out of Raleigh!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Snow Was Falling Like Moravian Stars


Snow was falling like Moravian stars the day my son suggested we visit Old Salem. When we arrived we crossed a covered bridge and stepped back in time.  The bridge transported us to the eighteenth century.


The Moravians settled in North Carolina in the middle of the eighteenth century on land known as the Wachovia tract. Their religion, the first Protestant denomination, was founded by a Catholic, Czech priest who was burnt at the stake for heresy. The Moravian Church is still in existence today in the United States. At Old Salem, the church sits north of the square.


Farther down Main Street we came across the campus of Salem College for women. Perhaps you’re more familiar with Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Moravians believed that education was essential for salvation. The day of our visit, children were rolling snowmen on the green while a trombone choir performed. The Moravians are credited with bringing classical European music to America.

Needing to warm up, we stepped inside the Winkler Bakery for some sugar bread. Serving sweet buns during a church service (the lovefeast) is one of the Moravian traditions.




In every gift shop, we came across the Moravian star, with its twenty-six points, a symbol of Advent.




Outside, snow continued to fall until it turned purple.



We walked along Main Street in the cold. That's my husband in the yellow jacket, strolling past the Single Brothers' House. Wreaths decked doors with diagonal designs. I turned to wave at the camera.


We saw homes that could have inspired the likes of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Up on the Housetop.” Our thoughts turned toward getting back home before the interstate froze.




The day ended with contemplation of the motto of the Moravian Church: "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, love."