Random Music Post: Love Me or Leave Me

So I was watching Carnivale as part of my six-week “Don’t Break Your Foot Any More Than You Already Have” plan, and I recognized the lyrics to a song in one scene, even though I didn’t recognize the music.  I’m proud of myself for placing the lyrics after just a few moments, especially since the version of this song I just heard tonight is so very different from the one I’m familiar with.  The song is “Love Me or Leave Me”, which was a prominent song from my past.  I fell in like with it back in the summer of 2006, right about the same time Amy and I broke up for the last time.  The version I know is the Nina Simone one, and that’s what I’m posting here.  She has a great voice, and her piano playing in this song reminds me of Bach.  I love jazz that reminds me of Bach.

Love Me or Leave Me

Tumbled, broken

Today was a gorgeous day, the perfect day for running around a lake in your brand new cold weather running clothes.  And so that’s what I did with a friend of mine who also likes running.  I’m not used to running outside on pavement (I’m a treadmill person), and neither of us was used to running with someone else, so it didn’t take long for things to go very wrong.  I missed the pavement with my outside foot and turned my ankle, taking several tumbles on the grass because I was running so freaking fast.  I hope it looked cool.  My friend thought the last roll was gratuitous, but really, it wasn’t.  It would have taken more effort than I felt like spending to stop that last roll, so I just let it play out.  My new clothes passed the tumble test; they did not explode.

I wish my ankle held up as well as my clothes.  Actually, it wasn’t the ankle that was the problem; it was my foot.  I thought I heard a snap when I fell, but that could have been a branch I landed on.  Still, it felt eerily similar to the time in 2002 when I was running on a frisbee golf course and fell, breaking a small bone in my foot.  I worried the same thing happened again today.  We valiantly tried walking the rest of the way (I was valiant, while she was patient and accommodating), but eventually it became painful, so we turned back.  I was treated to gobs of bandages and some hot chocolate before heading home, hoping that my foot would be feeling better in time to do the Reindeer Run on Saturday.

When I got back to my apartment and stepped out of my car, my foot was in a lot more pain than it was just fifteen minutes before.  I decided not to wait and to just find an urgent care center.  My health insurance’s website gave me a few helpful places.  One was in the same building as my gym, so I went there.  I hobbled in, filled out the form, and sat down.  The nice lady at the desk told me that urgent care didn’t actually open until 6:00 (it was 5:14 at the time).  This was the first moment of the evening when I was pretty pissed.  The doctors leave the clinic at 5:00, and urgent care opens at 6:00; how the hell do you have a one hour window where nobody can get help?  I didn’t hang around.  I was hungry, so I went home to eat dinner.

I thought about going back to the same clinic at 6:00, but opted to go to a closer one near Bandana Square.  There were a few more moments of being pissed off at this place.  The parking ramp was weird, being one of those one-way parking structures with diagonal parking spots, but not having any signs to tell you it was one way.  So I drove in the wrong way.  Not helpful.  Grrr.  The front desk people were getting used to a new computer system, so my check-in was slowed down, as well as this awful period after first seeing the doctor when I had to go to the x-ray desk.  I hobbled over there, which by this point was very painful, only to be told I had to go to the main desk first.  I hobbled back (painfully), and waited while the girls figured out how to do what they needed to do before I could get an x-ray.  After that, there were no more moments of getting pissed off.  At least, not at this place.

The doctor revealed what I thought, that I had a fracture of the proximal end of the fifth metatarsal, the same break I had six years ago, just on the other foot.  I took it in stride, but she said something that scared the crap out of me.  She said sometimes these fractures don’t heal right.  I can stand being out of commission for six weeks.  It will wreak some havoc with my mood not being able to run, but hopefully not too much.  But if my foot doesn’t heal right, and I’m unable to run indefinitely, I will be miserable.  I’ll have to go to my regular doctor next week to make sure we keep an eye on it.  I want to do everything right so I can still do my new favorite activity.

Overall, I’ve had a pretty good attitude about it, despite a few angry moments.  I see the humor and ridiculousness of a guy not used to running on pavement, so he immediately tumbles and breaks something.  I see the humor of joking about not being able to do the Reindeer Run because I might get hit by a bus, and then actually breaking my foot.  This is just a bump in the road, and I like to think I was still pleasant company for my friend up until I left her house.  I worry too much about being the best possible companion I can be at any given moment, even going so far as to feeling guilty when I suffer a malady that makes me a little less fun.  That’s twisted, but it’s part of how my brain works.  My brain also will spend some time dwelling on the cruel genetic twist that left me flimsy and small.  And I will also feel guilty about having the occasional negative thoughts I just mentioned, as if I have no right to ever be less than chipper.

I just spoke to my parents, telling them what happened.  They reacted as you’d expect, with more concern than I really cared for.  I’d be okay if some of my friends offered to drop by and bring me some supplies.  I’d be touched, actually.  But for some reason, hearing my parents make that offer raises my hackles, and I refused their offer with a shameful lack of grace.  I’m not sure why that is.  It’s probably my aversion to being treated like a child by them.  They normally do treat me like an adult, but every so often the situation presents itself where my mother gets all fussy over me, and that’s exactly the kind of coddling that’s made me soft.  I’ve gone in kind of an introspective direction in this post, but I want to make clear that my mood through all of this will remain positive with occasional sprinkles of irritation.  I will have plenty of time left after this heals to enjoy myself, so six to eight weeks without running won’t kill me.  Unless I get hit by a bus because I’m too slow crossing the street.

UPDATE: I called my mom this morning to apologize for not being more appreciative.  My parents came and brought several bags of groceries, which is way more processed food than I usually keep onhand.  If anyone wants to snack on Twizzlers and pretzels, please come over and help yourself.

Morning Mood

I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster this morning.  It began with me wondering why the hell I was up so early (5:00, the same time I wake up every other day, except I usually need an alarm clock).  So there was some anger and exasperation right away.  Then I stumbled into the kitchen and realized I never bought bread or eggs.  What was I going to make for breakfast?  Some sadness set in at that point.  I peeked in the cupboards, saw that I had most of a bag of granola and most of a container of yogurt (I had to look in my fridge to confirm that; I don’t keep my yogurt in the cupboard).  I had enough to satisfy my hunger for a short while.  Add in some coffee and some of the eight pounds of grapes I still had from Sunday’s visit to Costco, and I had enough food to keep me alive until I ate Thanksgiving Dinner at one o’clock in the afternoon.  So I made myself a bowl of yogurt and granola (heavy on the granola), and sat down at my computer.  The sadness at not having any food was gone, and the anger and exasperation of being up so early had left, as well.  I was awake, which is when I have most of my fun.  I became filled with love for all my great friends, and was (and still am) very thankful for them.  It was a good, positive feeling, and I wish I could have just let me mood stay there.  Unfortunately, my lack of sleep caught up with me, and I hit my wall, going from euphoric to exhausted.  It was just too much joy too soon in the day.

This all took place in the span of fifteen minutes.  I have a feeling this roller coaster still has some twists, turns, rises, and drops in it.

A song for Thanksgiving

Sometimes I listen to something by Aaron Copland, and I ask myself how I could keep on saying that Charles Ives is my favorite American composer.  Copland is just so goddamned beautiful.  I haven’t heard anything as gorgeous as Copland when he’s at his prettiest.  Well, maybe Robert Moran.  And maybe Ralph Vaughan Williams.  But nevermind, Copland comes out on top.  So how can I claim to like someone else more than him?  I don’t know, but I feel validated when I hear certain things by Charles Ives.  Particularly, the final movement of his Fourth Symphony.  But today I’m posting the final movement of his Symphony of New England Holidays.  One thing I love about Ives is his bizarre use of traditional American songs and hymns.  He paints a portrait of America that is complex and sometimes ugly, but he always displays a fondness for it.  I dont’ think it was Ives’ intent to depict America the way I interpret it; it’s just his unique musical language.  That’s another thing I love about him.  Most composers of the 20th century who composed this “ugly” music seemed to do it out of some hoity-toity idea of what art should be.  It’s my understanding that Ives just had a queer sense of humor, and his strongest influence was his father, who liked to arrange marching bands to play different tunes all at the same time.  You can really see that in a lot of his work.  His music is so messy and scattershot, it’s as gorgeous as Copland, but in a different way.

But enough talking.  Here is Charles Ives’ “Thanksgiving and Forefather’s Day.”

Thanksgiving and Forefather’s Day

Personal Theme Music: “In the Steppes of Central Asia”

One of the few pieces of music I absolutely fell in love with the first time I heard it.  It was on a CD I received for Christmas from a friend in 2002, and has been one of my favorites ever since.  Simple, plain, short, quite pretty.  All words that can also describe me from time to time.

In the Steppes of Central Asia — Borodin

My occasional outrage rears its head

I don’t complain that often about poor writing. Complaints are best left to people who don’t commit the errors they’re complaining about, and my writing isn’t so sterling that I can just bitch about the writing of others. That’s only fair. But I read a sentence in a book tonight that made me so mad that I have to publicly call this author out. The man’s name is Patrick Rothfuss, and the book in question is The Name of the Wind. I’ll be charitable and say that he was doing “fine” for seven hundred pages. He was wordier than he needed to be, and his characters were annoyingly noble a bit too often, but he mostly told a tale that I didn’t mind reading. And then for some reason, he fills the room with this noxious fart: “My progress was so nonexistent that I wondered at times if there was any progress to be made at all.”

So nonexistent. As if there are degrees of nonexistence. Please. A thing is either nonexistent or not. It cannot be “so nonexistent” that it causes something to happen, whereas if it had been slightly less nonexistent, that thing would not have happened. I mean, come on. How could a person who competently wrote for over seven hundred pages craft a sentence so moronic? There is nothing remotely as stupid in the rest of the book. Did his editor just miss this? I was so angry, I had to get up and leave the coffee shop I was in to walk it off. I’m only a few pages from the end, and I was really kind of liking the book up until this point. I was even excited to read the next book in the series. But now, the final few pages will feel like a chore, and I’ll wish I had a fireplace so I had somewhere to put this book when I finish it.