Carl Sandburg

If you're not familiar with Carl Sandburg, you should do something about that.

AZTEC MASK

I wanted a man's face looking into the jaws and throat
of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash
of the jaws,
No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end
With anything else than the old proud look:
Even to the finish, dumped in the dust,
Lost among the used-up cinders,
This face, men would say, is a flash,
Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth,
Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years,
Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence.
Ready for the dust and fire and wind.
I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask.
A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer,
A beaten shape of ashes
waiting the sunrise or night,
something or nothing,
proud-mouthed,
proud-eyed gambler.

Pillory

This word has been hanging in my head all day. Fascinating to learn the noun, too - I always thought they were called "stocks":

Main Entry: 1pil·lo·ry
Pronunciation: \ˈpi-lə-rē, ˈpil-rē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural pil·lo·ries
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French pilori
Date: 13th century
1 : a device formerly used for publicly punishing offenders consisting of a wooden frame with holes in which the head and hands can be locked
2 : a means for exposing one to public scorn or ridicule

Kicking and Screaming

This morning, I woke up screaming, the first time that's ever happened. I had a dream I was in a dried riverbed in the southwest, with tufts of sagebrush growing here and there and the sand hard packed and carved by the waters. It was hot, and my family and I were dehydrated and staggering towards some undetermined point for some undetermined reason. For some reason, I looked behind me, watching in horror as one of the ripples of the sand comes alive into a 4 foot long rattlesnake with a red head. I start to run, and the snake lunges, then I freeze as it rears up and makes a clumsy strike at me. I stare at the snake and it passes between my legs, making a beeline for my brother at supernatural speed. I could see him jumping in the distance, making to run, and screamed "STOP!" at the top of my lungs...which is what I woke up to.

I'm not sure what to make of it, other than stress. Holy GOD the stress of late. For those of you I haven't called, Becky got into pharmacy school, at her top choice even! Yay, right? Well, not so much...while she had applied to Creighton University's distance pharmacy program, she was only admitted to the residential program (they wanted her pretty bad, but there were no more spots on the distance program). That program is located in Omaha, Nebraska. For 4 years. BLEAH. And she accepted, because, facing facts, this was the last and best year for her to start, even if it goes for 4 years, even if it involves a move, because we want to have a family and get her going in this career.

So the last few weeks have been a panic of getting her application in, telling a lot of very disappointed people here in town (near-universal reaction, 'No! But I support you. *pout*'), applying for a new job out there in NE (great lead on this one...cross your fingers for me), figuring out how to refinance and finish off big projects with the house, and trying to work out a good but extremely complicated residential option out in Omaha. Everything's happening at a mile a minute, and I'm looking at giving up pretty much everything I've built here at home to go out to a place I don't particularly want to be in a job I have to get but no network to lead to. It's truly an emotional rollercoaster/suckerpunch that we can't unfortunately do anything about. Easily the most stressful time in the last 5 years of my life - and that includes my wedding.

Fast forward to last night. We've spent the last 2 weeks arranging a deal to purchase a share in a majority student-owned townhouse co-op in Omaha, which would give us a comparably sized place to our house at ridiculously low maintenance fee, which would allow me to rent our house to my brother for a low price so he can watch out for it while we're gone. This has been the ONE thing that really seems to be working in this whole fiasco for me - it really gave me some piece of mind that we won't HAVE to sell the house if something goes wrong, which in this market is a godsend. But everything relies on another thing to keep the balance.

The sellers, who thought their place would sell quickly, got shafted by a buyer who didn't put any earnest money down (their fault) and so when they accepted our offer, demanded we put both earnest money and a 72 hour right of first refusal clause in the contract that would basically force us to buy if someone showed up cash-in-hand or we lose our share. Not wanting to fight about it, we agreed.

The paperwork to even get into the complex is stupidly complicated (we have to get handsigned statements from all our banks as to our debt/credit, and a noterized contract that our parents will pay our $300/month HOA fees if we can't...jesus) and we got it Thursday. The contract went out from the seller on Friday. Becky's waiting for financial aid info from Creighton to see if we can even afford to send her there. And of COURSE on Saturday some person send them an email saying 'I have (more than Alex and Becky offered) dollars...where do I send it.'

So the seller wants the clock to start, but we haven't even received/signed the paperwork yet, nor have we been accepted to the complex, nor do we know what we'll be putting out for Becky's school. We're leaving town on Thursday for a birthday trip with Becky's family, so we have 3 days, no contract, no acceptance, and no financial aid and need to buy the place NOW or we're out. The seller's parents want to be sure we're into the complex before they take our money (thank god) so that gives us some time and we may be able to send in the earnest money to keep things copacetic while we wait, but right now it's all on a highwire act that's fucking INSANE.

Some little part of me hopes the whole damn thing will just fall through, that things will go back to being easy, but I don't think that's fair or realistic. I just don't want to leave, and neither does anyone we know. So if I seem bummered out or you hear me screaming about snakes...maybe you'll know why.

THIS...is an INTeresting PROfile

The man, the myth, the legendary ham...William Alan Shatner.