Saturday, June 18, 2005

Slice

The horse's name is Ravynesque, and her owner is Ravyn, who designed and maintains my website (she's very, very good at this) and has become my good friend. Ravynesque has become inexplicably ill and has been in pain for about a week now. You know things are bad when a stomach ulcer would be good news. Tomorrow, diagnostic tests will decide what happens next. We hope, we hope, we hope.
Her website is here:Ravyn

It's been sort of a tough year, so far. Could be worse---no serious catastrophe's, but lots of moderate things hammering away at us. Aubrey decided it was all because of this little tikki figurine hanging in the kitchen. It was a gift from Ben and, as Ben tends to be an agent of chaos, we decided to try throwing the thing away. After all, what did we have to lose?

Things got worse almost immediately, beginning with me twisting my ankle when I took the bag out to the garbage pail. Still, nothing truly awful---mishaps that waste money, or time, things breaking, getting lost, minor illnesses, car problems, small misunderstandings. Just, more of it.

We are not superstitious, and decided (on Friday, before pickup) that going through the garbage would more likely produce a spider bite than the lost tikki.
And, we are not superstitious.


I'm not sure which came first, the junk going on or the junk in my head, but these past few weeks I've awakened every day to a sinking feeling of dread and almost--grief. It's taking my best efforts to get past this and get on with the day---even to leaving notes to myself the night before. Today nothing in my bag of mental tricks was working, so I decided to try the hundred word exercise. Look, I know this isn't for everybody. I know that yes, I sometimes have a tendency to ubergeekness. But it did help. I think, for me, it's about concentrating on one thing. And because this thing is short and can be completed , it's satisfying in the way that a puzzle is and has less calories than chocolate ice cream. I posted my effort below.

If you have no idea what I?m talking about, go here:SlaughterHouse Studios: Tiny Stories

As always, thanks for reading. Go be brilliant.

4 comments:

K said...

That's funny. Several comments (below) about the meaning of dreams.

A few days ago I had a dream that I broke the stone of my engagement ring into powdery fragments like ground glass. It was disturbing at the time, in the disproportionate way dreams can be.

Then the day before yesterday, I realised my ring had dropped from my finger, and so far we cannot find it (raking through the fallen leaves in the lane, scanning the area with a metal detector, cleaning the house within an inch of its life in case I didn't drop it where I think I did).

I'm not superstitious either, but my not-superstitiousness has taken a knock. So - I know rather well how you feel about your string of minor misfortunes. I would be raking through the rubbish for the tiki doll if I were you. Fortunately for me, my fiancé is sympathetic to this uncharacteristic outbreak of illogic, and maintains that the ring will turn up somehow...

Best wishes to Ravyn.

Georgiana said...

Feel very much better soon Ravyn.

Your horse is beautiful.

Lisa -

This is me being forgetful instead of brilliant...

http://georgianalee.blogspot.com/2005/06/100-words-from-someone-with-bad-memory.html

ravyn said...

It's been a long week. i've posted all the details on my own blog but the gist of it is, it seems to be an ulcer. Ravynesque is responding to ulcer treatment so we're pretty sure about it now. Her appetite is back to normal, though she's not 100% (she's still tired, and looks at her belly once in a while), but overall it's a big improvement over last week.

Thank you all for your well wishes, it has helped a lot.

Carl V. Anderson said...

So glad to hear that she is recovering, Ravyn. An ill animal is so unsettling, partly because they can't just open up their mouths and tell us what is ailing them. I pray for a continued, quick recovery and for all to be as good as new, or better, within no time!