Saturday, September 1, 2012

The Daily Write: A new way (August 31, 2012)

A new way

Squinting at the screen without my glasses, willing myself to see. Easier than getting up to clean the smudges. I don't have many wrinkles, but the ones I do seem to be related to the lifelong squint. Between my brows, in creases on either corner of my eyes.

I also have a perpetually raised eyebrow. I think it makes me look incredulous. It certainly doesn't allow me to blend in. Hard to hide the arched look, even with huge face-obscuring sunglasses.

These things are unlikely to change. But telling myself I'm going to make today the day I start exercising again, and then getting all the way through the long day without having broken a sweat - well, yeah. Nothing new there. I'm not one for New Year's Day declarations. I do like making an audacious commitment. Easier when I've got something to prove. Less easy to do day in and day out without the big goal.

You'd think living a long and healthy life would be enough, but that's not as immediate as raising money for the SF AIDS Foundation, or the Women's Cancer Resource Center. Problem is, these days, everybody and their mother is participating in a charity event, and every third person has a Kickstarter campaign. We've become inured to requests for sponsorship, and accepted that this is the only way to fund urgent causes. But too many, too much - especially in an election year when every other email is a strangely casual call for $13 for Obama, which naturally I give, out of fear for what happens otherwise, all the while bitter that money is the be all and end all.

I find it ironic that I'm exhausted by doing nothing except viewing and responding to, or ignoring pleas for action. Everything these days seems to be between the finger tips and the squinting eyes. The body is almost immaterial.

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