Cancer/writing journal #100

 I had  calcium CT scan a little while ago.  It is intended to measure the plaque in your veins. a buildup of plaque is why you don't want a high cholesterol count.  At least I think that is all how it goes.  I go in next week to talk to the PA who ordered the test and can explain the results.  Anyway, I read the result and I am at zero.   I think that must mean that I have no plaque at all.  Meaning, I think, that I really don't have to worry about cholesterol.  I have had a high enough cholesterol number that they have discussed putting me on statins.  If they have a way of telling how much plaque is in your blood veins, I don't know why the test is not routinely done.  I would prefer that the explanation not be the cynical one, namely that doing the test would reduce the number of statin perscriptions that doctors would write.  I'm afraid that is the most plausible reason.  I will know more after talking to the PA who ordered the test.

I wrote two more poems for my writing group.  The one on the Ablative Absolute really had nothing to do with its meaning.  I was writing about it more as a thing, something unrelated to meaning.  Despite that, people were insistent on trying to figure out what it meant.  Perhaps if I had left out the AI definition, it would have been clearer that the meaning had no bearing on what I was writing.  Just seemed like a good way of starting out the poem.  Anyway, even though it has nothing to do with the poem, let me give you an example of the Ablative Absolute which should make its meaning clearer:  The boy, feeling hungry, opened up the refrigerator door.  "Feeling hungry" the thing that if written in Latin would be in the Ablative Absolute, offers more understanding as to why the thing in the main part of the sentence is occurring.  Got that?  Has nothing to do with my poem.  One lady in the writing group thought that each stanza should include something that if written in Latin would be in the Ablative Absolute.  I allowed as how that was an interesting idea.  If I were to do that however, it would muddy the fact that I am using the term as an artifact and not something that has meaning.

The second poem did not get discussed.  We did not have time to do more than one poem a piece.  I felt that the poem was a little false.  It suggests that I am odd enough so that it interferes with my dealing with the world.  That's not true.  I do just fine although as a younger man, I had some difficulty.  Anyway, I intended to discard the poem because it was not true but then decided, "What the heck" and put it in.  We submit our poems to members of the group before our meeting.  I got an email from one of the members who probably is not socially successful that she so liked the poem and was going to keep telling herself though she was odd, it was her odd.  Made me happy I had included it.  

There is a happy coincidence with the drummer and Thoreau's speaking of marching to the beat of a different drum.  The thing that prompted the poem was my niece who sings telling me that she had advised a drummer to not take any lessons for the reasons that are spelled out in the poem.  I don't think she had Thoreau in mind.  And I didn't, at least consciously.  It was not until later that I realized that there was congruence.  I showed the poem to my niece and she said that I am a little odd--but in a good way.

Sorry for the format problems.  But they have been worse.

 The Ablative Absolute

The ablative absolute is a grammatical construction in Latin that combines cases with participles to show various things such as time, condition, or attending circumstances of an action being described in the main sentence. It is considered to be one of the most important and complex bits of Latin grammar

So says my AI app, Perplexity.

I do know my mother loved to use the term.

She was a Latin teacher who 

 talked about her work at home.

“The ablative absolute” is a phrase

that has been in my head for over 60 years.

The term does roll off the tongue nice.

I am betting that was in part 

why my mother liked to say it.

The alliteration and the rhythm.

If I owned a boat, I just might name it that.

Could be a little pretentious.

And then having to explain it?

Maybe I don’t think that’s a good idea.

It’s enough to use it as the title of a poem

“Don’t take any Lessons"

                                                          Said the singer to the drummer.

                                                           “You keep time perfectly

but in your own way, not the way

that people think good drummers

                                                          should do it.”

I don’t want to take lessons either.

                                                         Maybe there are better ways

But I don’t want to be a good imitator.

                                                        Too much work, for one thing.

 And a little late to be trying to get it right.

                                                        It may be odd but it’s my odd.

                                                        If you don’t like it,

                                                        get yourself another drummer.