Patterns

If it has a good beat,
you can dance to it...

Not too likely but more
the intricate cadence
of complete sound with
that almighty pull, drawn
into the rythm, you know
it's got to be the rythm that
gets to you, when it's good
and creating its own friction,
heat. Its that vibration
having been built from the
ground up, like campfires
on the beach, like passion
you can feel all the way
from where you stand,
when the only thing in
comparable opposition
to stir the spirit is the
haunting sound of pipes.

I just got notice today of one of the many changes currently taking place at work. Starting on the 29th, the people working in each area will have a different time schedule. It's gonna affect me all the way around because I'm a relief person and in a different area every day.
5 East: 6-2:30
5 West: 7-3:30
5 Middle: 8-4:30
4 East: 7-3:30
3 East: 6-2:30
ICU: 8-4:30

That's really gonna suck, coming in at 8:00 and not getting off till 4:30. Not only that, the lunch break times are gonna be different as well, so that means they're splitting us up at lunch. Maybe that'll cut down on employee complaints against the corporation. Well you know, anything to further the cause would be in our own best interest. Yeah.

Risk Worth Taking

I roam the hallways,
the visiting spirit confronting
an unknown past when the past
hides itself so effective,
unattainable to find meaning
from complex shadows,
foremost in my mind,
what was this damage done,
and why?
I know that your fear
becomes my fear metamorphosed,
that I am afraid of your absence
And that I can no longer ignore
this emptiness, such the awful
ache deep inside, for you.
And when I know I can still
burn away the chill of this autumn
And when those struggles continue
so far away, yet strike so close
to home, touching exposed nerve,
feeding fear, danger of loss,
losing love, the past is again
immediate, here to steal away
the hope I offer you.
And when I'm always dreaming
the safety of you, know that I'll
never be ready to let it take away
any more of you from you, from me.
So remember, my love, that its always
the risk worth taking.


Bailey
September 26, 2003

In one of the rooms I was cleaning yesterday, a car accident victim who said he was finally going home the next day. We got to talking, he was telling me how he totaled out his car last Friday, even showed me pictures of the wrecked car. My God, you know he was so lucky to walk away from that. Believe me there are people in less damaging wrecks who don't make it, I know. He's a young kid, just graduated high school last year. Told me that this particular time he had his seat belt on, when he doesn't usually wear one, and couldn't explain why or the reason he chose to buckle up. Man... I told him it just sounded like someone was definitely looking out for him that night, he is extremely lucky. I just can't help but think of Shawn when I see stuff like this.

There's a lady at work who's always bringing cakes for birthdays and such. She says she can't sleep a lot of times at night so she's always up at 3 in the morning baking a cake or cookies. Then she'll carry it to the bus stop, catch the bus to the Square, then walk from the Square to the hospital. Imagine having to lug those things around every time like that, sometimes she'll bring more than one when two birthdays hit in the same week. Little bitty thing too, not even 5 feet, weighs like 80 something. And here she's pushing these big carts around at work, don't know how she does it. Anyway, she bakes all these cakes, but never one for herself, she's diabetic. We all ought to find out when her birthday is and do somthing special, I mean after all, she's the one all the time thinking of everybody else. I remember when it was my birthday she asked me what kind of cake I wanted and I said "coconut" and I figured it would be like a mix with some cocunut added, or even just in the icing. But here she brings this 3-layer cake and says she made it from scratch. Wow... so we really need to do something really nice for her... It kinda bothers me some people complain about how she's so "grouchy" a lot of times, and I'm sorry, I just don't see it. She's just talking, everyday conversation, nothing grouchy about that.

Equal Parts

In the morning, still dark
and cool, there's moisture
in the air, and looking up,
there's the Cheshire cat moon
guarding his share, his equal
part of the day, playing
peek-a-boo through the clouds
and lightning strikes, like the
one that hit the building early
on, setting off fire alarms of
unknown origin on every floor.

(Fade out, then fade back in)

I gaze at all this through
the entrance, slowly close
the door and wait for the
perfect time this afternoon
for while you sit, I straddle
your lap, armed with a spoon
and a bowl of rocky road,
feed you fun, slow, sensual,
teasing sweet.
And there we are, face to face...

Last night marked the last show for Without Incident. Jeremy, their bass player is moving out of state and it was kind of an emotional night by the end of the evening. Very sad for a lot of people. Well the rest of the band will continue once they get a new bass player but they're retiring the name, which I thought was very touching. A kind of message that says, "once you're gone, it won't be the same so this is our way of telling you we'll miss you."
The show itself was pretty good, held in a church not too far from where I live. There was about six different bands there. It was kind of bizarre, though. Friendly moshing up front, where Riley's drums were stored off to the side for the rest of the show. I kept thinking "geez, they're getting awful close to the equipment, guard it..." But there was no damage. As I watched them it seemed as if they knew the boundaries. I was surprised. That's why I say "friendly" moshing, cause if somebody fell, somebody else would always help them back up. Wow. You don't see that every day. And nobody got mad eiher. So I guess that's how Christian Punk operates. I was pleasantly surprised.
Without Incident did a version of Amazing Grace during their set, and another band did a version of Friday, I'm in Love. ... Sorry, that song just wasn't meant to be punked-out. Just my opinion, haha.
Wish I could remember the name of the last band that played. they were a little older than the rest of them, and the lead guitar had some real intricate bluesy type riffs mixed in with the other stuff. I liked the contrast.

New rumors at work.. Well now its that they're gonna let two more of the housekeepers go. I keep thinking, if a certain someone doesn't keep his mouth shut, and himself out of trouble, they're gonna make him the next to go. Poor guy - sometimes he just pops off stuff without thinking, or maybe the truth is he knows what he's doing, he's just testing people. I also hear of an upcoming meeting that involves an entire department. Major, major changes going on.

Life can be good again.
I can find solace and
comfort from the past,
never go back, never
run away...
Never run away.
I promise.

No Call, No Show

(Payday... Jesse come on)

Here I'm on overtime and
wondering just how long it
should take to cash a check.
Should be here by now
spooning up this stuff so I can
go downstairs for the cart, put
pans in warmers, burned my fingers
on the pilot, damn, these old folks
gotta eat and some get more than
cranky when they gotta wait.

(Jesse come on already)

Something. It might have been the way
or even the reason for a distraction,
the trip-up that cost half the residents
on this floor their banana pudding.

(Something is terribly wrong)

Nah, he should be here helping clean
this mess, I barely have time now
to wrap silverware, bag rolls,
paste up the water, powdered thickener.

(...at least come in time to help serve)

Jesse never showed.



Monsters (Conspiracy of Silence)

Half the crew is
holding their tongues
Knowing all along now
They know, you can
see it in their eyes,
they know.
If there's something you
should say then you damn
well better spill it.
You can start by answering,
Where are they?
Now that they're on the run
now that the deed is over
and its too late now for
Jesse McKinnis.
They know the where, the how,
they know the why. Its like
they've all gone suddenly mute,
but never them in shock.
Never them, 'cause they
knew all along, synchronized time
while the set-up played itself out.
Payday, make it look like
it was for the money.
The same money he was gonna use
to surprise his grandfather, restore
the classic sitting for years
in his garage, but...
Monsters never gave a rat about that,
just hard-core accesories now.
There's a special place
in Hell for the lot of ya.



Samhain

Home fires in the
Highland hills.
For once I have
new dreams
at summer's end, as
the old becomes
a new hope for the
year to come.
What good is a
dream without
convoluted meaning,
but I sense that the
unknown is a lot
less frightening
when seen
under your light.

It's been raining quite a bit for the past few days. I wonder if there's gonna be the same kind of mess I walked into the last weekend it rained so hard. I wonder if they know how much I talk about them here on the blog, those folks out in Lee's Summit. I wonder if they still remember me at the Groves. I'm restless today, I wanna do something but I don't know what. Somebody stop me if I say anything about going back to the Groves. Hahaha! Like maybe a PRN position up on third floor or something. Doris tried to get me to do that when I left the first time. And when I went to work at Regional, lo and behold she was there too. Haha, she's everywhere with that voice.... "Well, ya know..." Never mind people, that was an inside joke. I'm just rambling on here. Something, for some reason, made me think about Jesse McKinnis. That was awful. Maybe something I read somewhere just kind of spurred my memory of that whole mess. Jesse never deserved what he got. Never did a bad thing to anybody. I'll write more someday but not now.

It's the rain, its the seasons changing, its decisions made, its freedom again. I hope.

All For This

You've got me now to where
I could beg for the touch
of your hands on my body,
the kiss from your lips,
a nuzzle, urgent, passion felt
above my shoulder, beg for
you to need this much as well.
Only for this, I can almost
taste the scent of you as
you reach for me, ravage me,
move through me, all to
obliterate this awful ache
within that only comes from
being without you.
I could beg for all this,
have you understand
with just a soft touch
of my own, a caress for
your hair, your skin
and I swear another look
in those brown eyes of yours
I'll be lost forever, but still I
hold you gentle, tell you true
my hands love you as much
as my heart.
And in the morning, I'll again
smooth your hair, wild from
restless sleep and dreams,
wake you with kisses
just to see you open your eyes,
just to tell you how much this means.

I've stayed away from tv on purpose the past couple of days, but because the images are always gonna be there, images and words, and tributes to firefighters and emergency workers. Everyone pulled together two years ago. I can't figure out why it takes such a tragedy for people to pull together like that. I don't know, just some observations I guess. I saw the attacks on tv as it was happening, I guess that was enough for me. I was working third shift at the time at another hospital in North Kansas City, and when I came home that morning, I fell asleep trying to watch some tv, and happened to wake up again when they broke into programming with taped footage of the first plane that hit one of the buildings. They had already switched to a live feed by the time the second plane came through.
Not long after, I heard one of the announcers say that the first structure was leaning, and I remember thinking, "surely not, that can't be right." But it was. And by the end of the end of the day those buildings were gone, along with all the people still in them. Even as far away as I was, the whole experience, watching it, left me feeling chilled. Knowing that from then on things would never be the same. Its still awful to remember, but the feeling I have is that we're supposed to remember, just some of us in different ways, in private.

Buddy

In 45 minutes, stray dogs
can pass you from behind
and forge an unspoken path
of protection along the way,
the entire way.
The morning can change
from dark to dim, to colors
of coral and sky blue
so that by the time
it takes to reach Truman
and Forest even the clouds
can look like train tracks
from here.

Yesterday my horoscope said, "Self-control is the last resort. Hide from others. The future will change tomorrow." Very ominous-sounding. I was hoping nothing would change for the worse, and what was up with that "hide from others" part?
Well today for the moment I feel pretty good. Things might be getting better. Hopefully certain people will finally mean what they say for once. Just want my life back, you know?
I emailed a friend who lives in Fresno and well its a long story, but he ended up with my acoustic guitar I told him to keep. Lately I got to thinking that's part of what I want, used to do, an now really wanting to do again. He still has it, so I guess I'll have him send it. Wow, little by little, piece by piece, finally. I just hope it doesn't all blow up in my face for some reason.

It was Greg Cordum's birthday today, (General Manager of EVS at Indep. Regional, MCI, and Lee's Summit Hospital) and it also happens to be Housekeeping Appreciation week so he got us all pizza. I told him it was also Jason's birthday, and when he asked how old he was, he didn't believe me when I told him, he's 22. Andy, my old boss came by the hospital too. He still says everybody misses me out at Lee's Summit. And I still have to say he's one of the best bosses I ever worked for. He'll work right alongside you when your swamped with a ton of stat dismissals. Not like some of the supervisors here. Well I shouldn't complain too much, at least I still have a job, which brings me to some of those that are no longer co-workers. I think that how it was done was very cold and heartless on the part of HCA. I guess that's what happens with a big corporation like that.

Steps Away

Just a sigh of relief away
is the freedom of my own
time, own thoughts
own words, own words.
No fear, no stress,
no headache,
able to save again,
able to breathe again,
drink in the air,
watch colors of night
with humor again.
When there's something
unidentifiable...
Laoghaire, its your cousins.

Life is complicated - Why does it seem we're always afraid to feel,
that love is something to be afraid of, to run from. Maybe I just
feel too much - everything.

Well, a lot of things went down at work while I was off Friday and Saturday. Let's just say we're minus three more people as of Friday. After months of delaying an official "announcement" about this, they go and lay people off without such an announcement. I can't say I really agree with the tactics here. I mean aren't we supposed to give a standard 2-week notice to quit? What, they can't give these three the same courtesy? This brings us to a grand total of 7 slots that probably will never be filled. One transferred to Lee's Summit, another resigned for health reasons, one quit a couple of months ago, the ER housekeeper transferred to another department, and now Dennis, Shelley, and Roxie from nights, are gone. Really gonna miss Dennis, trading cat stories, or "Hey you" joking around all the time, up on the floors. Man, that sucks. Hardly anybody that's left jokes around like that. I was talking to Randy, who was saying they went by seniority. Well that can't be right, 'cause I'm one of the two newest people here. I guess they counted my time at Lee's Summit before I transferred, plus I'm the only other housekeeper who can do linen too. I guess I'm lucky there.

If you've ever seen on here where I've mentioned the local punk group Fed-Up, good things have been happening for them this past week. This is the band my daughter shoots pictures of, promos and all that, sometimes for their website. Well it seems that they have been signed. Hmmmm.... only a rumor at this point because nobody around here can get in touch with 'em again to find out what label. I gues they forgot to ask the first time. Or, see how quickly they forget?
And Laoghaire finally got a job after a year of looking, now she's at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Now she won't have to drop that class that goes in tandem with it, hopefully. And more officially she's been accepted into Brooks Institute of Photography. I may have mentioned that before. Must be a sign of fatigue. So with that I'll sign off.

Every year on Labor Day weekend, they have an event called the Santa-Cali-Gon. Independence was the site where the Santa Fe, California, and Oregan trails met. So they have a carnival, craft vendors, country and bluegrass bands, food booths, etc. up on the Square. I don't go anymore because it's always too hot plus there's just too much crowd. When my mom died, the funeral happened to be on the first day of the Santa-Cali-Gon that year and everybody went up to the Square afterwards. I thought that was just too much. I didn't go. A year before that my Grandma Ginney died right before Thanksgiving- I didn't even know things were really that bad until I got a call from my mom, long distance. I was in Fresno at the time. I was making a scarf to match her coat, purple. Working on that to send for Christmas. And I was in the middle of it when I picked up the phone. Geez I remember all I could really say was "I'm making this scarf, its her favorite color. I'll never get to give it to her." For some reason when I started the project it meant so much. So instead of sending Christmas presents I came out to Kansas City for the funeral. And you know how people say they "appear to be asleep"? A cliche cause you hear it all the time. But I swear, in this case it really did look like she was sleeping. I ended up going back to Fresno on Thanksgiving Day, because that was the stipulation for getting booked on a flight on such short notice.

Vague

The remainder's always standing so
far away from me, distant anodyne
a mixed message always so vague.
What mixed message can be found here?
I'm supposed to be quite a person
but never quite knowing
what that means exactly,
good or bad, it could be anything.
I'm left grasping at the emptiness
of straw again - and what was it
Warhol once said, "Timing is all,"
but what good is time when spent
in useless company, the rude, the
bad and the lazy, thieves never
leaving the scene of the crime and
returning only wasted time and burn-out.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and expose all. Well even more than I'm really comfortable with. Like there's this extra person in my house that's been there for about a month now and won't leave either. See I knew something was up when I saw the people he'd been staying with pull up and leave about five boxes of his damn stuff out in the rain. Said he was gonna be gone by Labor Day but... still here. You know, what if I did just all of a sudden just leave. Just disappear. And the saying "nobody goes hungry in my house" well that sentiment has been more than abused, especially when they're playing Everquest in shifts now. This is totally insane, useless. Neither one of them has a job. Excuse me, but fuck all that. I can't take any more. The very next chance, I'm out of here for good. I don't care where it is, just away from here. I can't live like this. I can't take this.

Shades of an X-Phile

And in the darkness
the cynic to my believer
Scully to my Mulder
Its theory to theory
And I was blinded by
his science, talk of the
stratosphere, the cosmos,
systems to systems, creation
to evolution theories or my
favorite theory that merges
them both, faith and disregard.
Then there's that way of
quoting Shakespeare, Bronte
and Neruda, the scope of
language much more than I
can ever hope for. Maybe
the problem here is that
I've lost education along
with everything else, yet
another something to reclaim.

Bailey here. It's amazing how you don't realize you depend on technology until you're without it, even for a short time. Cell phones, the internet, all a line to the outside world, greater in scope than you can travel in a day or 45 minutes, the time it takes to get to work. At work yesterday at the elevators near where the cafeteria is, one of the dietary ladies asked me "are you getting skinnier or are your clothes just getting bigger?" Geez the fourth person in about a month. (And no, Laoghaire I am not anorexic - so quit playing that song whenever you come over, haha!) It's just stress, you know.
Anyway, it was a long day, I ended up working through last break just to get done. Then I tried to go to the place to get a top up card for the phone after I got my check cashed and the bus I was waiting on I guess was stuck in traffic and would have been waay delayed, so I just took the regular bus home. Later on though my daughter came by and offered to give me a ride up there, went to a Chinese place at Independence Center, pretty good.
I have two days off, I'm going to bed and sleeping in tomorrow morning. Right now, I feel like I could sleep for a week. Goodnight everybody.

Soul Screamings

Nothing I wouldn't do now
No distance I wouldn't travel
No pilgrimage too far to retrieve
and return to hand him the something
of value and substance he so desparately
needs, and know that my heart belongs
to him already. That and my
soul screaming, silent yet
believing in him still, primal, pleading.
pleading to see me, I am here, I am real.
I watch him forever run a struggle
each day with some unknown torment,
a god-awful school of piranha worry that
tears away at the vital and leaves only
confusion that he hides behind a masking
of the every day-to-day trivial, the altogether
meaningless. I know that from all the world
he holds this chaos inside.
From all the world, except for me
and its the only me I'm capable of being,
because when he's churning, so I churn,
hurt when he hurts, bleed when he bleeds.
Even now when he pushes so much for me
not to and I'm not pushing as hard as I can,
but tossed just the same by the unknown
as in the potential knowing.

Wow. Talk about deja vu. There was major problems with the phone lines earlier today and I kept getting disconnected in the middle of posting the previous entry. So I guess it took each time I hit the "publish" button. Its probably because of the rain, which has caused some problems elsewhere too. Like the night before last when it really started coming down, another lady from work had to evacuate her house because the entire walls in the basement collapsed from all the rain, had to call her son to help her get the animals out 'cause they were scared and hiding under the beds... gas line broke and it was really concentrated inside the house there. She was lucky to get herself and everyone else out, but imagine. She stopped by during one of our breaks yesterday with her son, she was just in tears, said the whole downstairs was just rubble, the foundation's shot, and they said it wasn't even safe yet to go back in for some clothes. I really feel bad for her. It could have been a lot worse though, she could have been asleep and ended up being trapped inside with all that gas when it happened.
Oh and the hospital sprung leaks everywhere from the rain, there were a couple of code reds, from where water got into the wiring and shorted out some lights. Puddles all in the patient rooms up on 5th floor, half the break area was completely soaked, an inch of water in Healthline, the classrooms there. They had the wet-vacs running nonstop yesterday. The lead kept saying "This is the day from Hell" And she tried calling the supervisors but they weren't answering their phone. It's an old hospital and when you have the entire season with no rain, then all of a sudden you get 15 inches of water all at once there's gonna be some major problems.

I said one time I was going to list all the music CDs that I own right now... And these are ones I'm never letting go of again, because some of them are replacements for one's I've lost over the years.

Galore - The Cure
(I tore this place apart looking for the CD I had of theirs and never found it. Got this one at Sam Goody - it has all the songs I like on it.)

Tribute to the Ramones
We're a Happy Family - Various
(My daughter got me this for my birthday)

Anthology - Ramones
(another birthday gift a couple of years ago)

Artist In the Ambulance - Thrice
(Replaces Korn as my new favorite band)

Matrix Reloaded Soundtrack - Various
(I really like the instrumentals on this)

A Day Without Rain - Enya

Paint the Sky With Stars - Enya

Celtic Mouth Music - Various
(A lot of the songs here are very rough, the sound quality isn't that great. But there are a few really good ones once you get past all the others. A few with incredible harmonies.)

Live At the Acropolis - Yanni
(A Christmas present from my daughter. I used to play this one all the time back in Fresno.)

Amused to Death - Roger Waters
(I had to special order this one off the internet, through a friend who had a credit card. Haha)

The Belfast Gigs - Horslips
(Another one I had to special order. They had another album, my favorite of theirs but it couldn't be found, even on the web.)

Men Without Women - Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul
(You know Little Steven - the guy with the scarf on his head in the E-Street band. He's also Sylvio Dante on the Sopranos.)


And some Christmas albums...

The Christmas EP - Enya
(My mom thought this was a beautiful rendition of Silent Night "Oiche Chiun" sung in the Gaelic language. So I played it a lot.)

The Kansas City Holiday Album - Various
(The proceeds from this went to benefit Wayside Waifs, one of the largest animal shelters in Kansas City.)

The Christmas Attic - Transiberian Orchestra
(Got this one by mistake, thought it had a certain song but it didn't. Kept it anyway, it's still a Christmas album.)

Traditional Celtic Christmas - Various
Instrumental... bagpipes. Need I say more? :)