“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

– Mark Twain 

Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.

– William Faulkner

My all time favorite writer. 

My friends, I’m having a health event and I could use your prayers and good thoughts this week. All signs point to my gallbladder being the culprit, but I’m waiting for my doctor to call about lab results.

I’ve had several attacks of significant upper abdominal pain over the past several years. Recently, the pains became frequent, so I saw my doc. He said it was suspicious for gallbladder, but prescribed a powerful antacid in case it was gastritis. A few days later, I started getting jaundice (my eyes and skin are yellowish), which generally means that the gallbladder is blocked.

Yesterday I had an ultrasound, which confirmed the presence of stones in my gallbladder. But to rule out other causes, the doctor also sent me to the lab for blood work. That’s what I’m waiting for now.

The good news is that I’ve had no pain in several days, because I’ve stopped eating fat, gone pretty much Vegan. But I’ve never had a health problem that wasn’t solved with medicine and rest. I’ve never been in a hospital as a patient.

It looks like I’ll need surgery for this. If so, hopefully, I’ll have the laproscopic option. I’ve heard that’s much less of a trial. And I understand that gallbladder surgery is very common and safe. But I’m still anxious — understandably, I think.

At the moment I feel OK. I’m just waiting for more to be revealed. In the meantime, I can use all the prayer and good energy from you that I can get … thanks!

I mean I’m following you too, as far as you know. 

A lot of bloggers have been following Metaphor lately, and I appreciate it very much. But you might be wondering why I haven’t followed back. It’s because I usually don’t sub by email. I use Feedly to sub to feeds; until recently, Google Reader. I have a lot of WordPress blogs set up there. So that’s what’s going on. 

Apropos of nothing, I really wish the owner of this coffeehouse would throw down a few bucks to pump in some heat. It’s a beautiful spring day, but it’s like a refrigerator in here. Still, thanks for the free wi-fi. 

On March 31, I posted that I was back in the saddle, having experienced a significant problem with my desktop computer. I guess I should follow up and admit that I’ve been on my butt in the dust this whole time. The PC wasn’t fixed as I thought, after all.

A couple of days after replacing the hard drive, I began to experience problems starting or waking the PC when it had been off or in sleep mode for a while, It would freeze just as Windows began to start, and it might take multiple tries to boot up. Then it would run fine, until I shut down or allowed it to sleep again.

Two days ago, I pressed the power button on the tower. It lit, the computer began to hum, it went off, lit and hummed again, went off. It did this several times before I held the power button down to force shutdown. When I tried again, it booted OK.

So today the machine is in a repair shop. On the phone, the technician speculated I have a bad installation of software; a glitch in the drivers. But since the problem I described was happening well before Windows could even begin to try to load, and I had updated BIOS, I think the problem is with the motherboard.

[Sigh] The manuscript of my first chapbook was typed and mailed, and there are times when I long for the simplicity of those days. But then I wouldn’t be able to share this instantly with all of you. There is no doubt our newest technology is helpful, worth time and money to human society in general. It is bringing the world closer together. But I think the time has come for consumers to demand that people who make technology stand more firmly behind it. For at least 10 years.

The only explanation for failing hardware in a 3 year old PC is that it has a 1 year warranty. Computer companies know better than promise more, although they can make things to last when they try. The PC at the shop is a 2009 HP p6130f, quad core, 8GB of ram, 1000GB hard drive. Today I pulled from the closet a 2001 Dell Dimension 4300, 18GB hard drive, 384mb RAM. It’s 12 years old, so Dell would’ve done OK with a 10 year warranty. It runs very slowly, but it’ll get you down the road, without throwing you off in the weeds.

This little poem is starting to get a bit long in the tooth, as they say, and it’s never been shared publically. So it’s time, and it’s about time.

The dog mentioned here went on to the heaven of all dogs several years ago. And frankly, I miss talking to her a lot more than than I miss the woman to whom the poem speaks. So it goes.

This piece will probably be included in a collection of poems and flash fiction which I hope will be published soon. It’s almost finished!

Which reminds me to mention that I am grateful for the time that people give to reading my humble posts. It does not elude me that your time and attention are a gift. Thank you, very much.

Certain Streets

Time passes, so I get up
every morning. I have
soap that smells insanely
like spring in Ireland,
or a waterfall. I brush my hair
and talk to the dog while
calculating how long
it has been since you called.

Seven months, so I drive to work.
The yellow fog burns back
to the water’s edge and leaves
a brilliant path for me.

I slip along the edge of clarity
and listen as the stock market drops
through the morning light.
If time goes on, I have lunch
in the park and everything

hums through the day;
computer, printer, people
and lights. At three o’clock
I have coffee, then drive home
at dusk through certain streets
where I see you float, silk
on a breeze of unremitting weeks.

Should I call? I’m sure
there will be time, some morning,
evening, afternoon, when the clock
is resting in a shadow on the wall.

Here is an audio reading of this poem. The clock chiming in the background was purely coincidental, but I decided to leave it as is.

Certain Streets by J. Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Just a reminder, I’m on Google + too. I consider it a blog as well and I post there more often: lots of fun videos from vloggers I enjoy, and general fun stuff.

profiles.google.com/kkimberlin

I hope everyone has a great week and, for those in the USA, a very Happy Thanksgiving.