What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
a.) Cataracts
b.) Glaucoma
c.) Macular Degeneration
d.) Near-sightedness
e.) All of the above
posted by greg rappleye at 5:49 PM
Friday, September 26, 2008
a.) Cataracts
b.) Glaucoma
c.) Macular Degeneration
d.) Near-sightedness
e.) All of the above
About Me
- Name: greg rappleye
- Location: Grand Haven, Michigan, United States
I am a writer who lives and works in West Michigan. I am a graduate of Albion College, the University of Michigan Law School, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. I have published three full-length collections of poetry: Holding Down the Earth (Sky Books, 1995), A Path Between Houses (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000) which won the Brittingham Prize, and Figured Dark (University of Arkansas Press, 2007), which won the University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series. I have also published three chapbooks: Eros, Psyche and the Death of Narrative (Candle Creek Press, 2006), The Afterlight (WVU-Legal Studies Forum, 2006), and The Divisible Field ( WVU-Legal Studies Forum, 2008), and have completed a fourth manuscript, Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds. I am working on a novel. My work has received a Pushcart Prize, the Mississippi Review Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Prize, the Greensboro Review Literary Award in Poetry, and the Arts & Letters Prize. I was a Bread Loaf Fellow in 2002. When not writing, I work full-time as corporation counsel for a local government and also teach part-time in the English Department at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
Previous Posts
- Eye Appointment
- Presidential Speech
- The Gaze of Orpheus
- Among the Sub-Geniuses
- A Good Day in Class
- Rustication
- The English Major
- Morning in Fly-Over Country
- James Crumley (1939-2008)
- Joan Osborne
6 Comments:
Here's hoping the answer is none of the above! I have to admit when I first saw the headline and image without the post underneath, I thought you were referring to the election and tonight's debate, and America stumbling in the dark.
I too hope (f.) none of the above but suspect all of the above. I'm sorry. At least all but the MD are treatable. Sigh. My mother, grandmother and uncle all have/had MD. I figure my time is coming.
I'm also hoping for none of the above. Keep us posted.
Oh dear, Greg - how depressing you blog is today. I hope the news is good and that your next blog cheers me up. PS It's no joke getting older, is it?!
Well, I win the four-play perfecta. All of the above. I am a "glaucoma suspect" (which is not so bad--it simply needs to be watched and this can be addressed with drops; am (of course) nearsighted--but no problem; I've worn glasses for years; have cataracts (and will therefore need to have an operation to get new lenses); and have dry macular degeneration, which will be the real problem over the medium-to-long haul.
So you'll all recognize me at the AWP Conference--I'll be the guy selling pencils and bumping into hotel planters. Guess I'd better finish this book and move on to Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Yes, Weaver of Grass, getting old is a Beyonce.
You put me in mind of remembering my Grandpa Gord again, this time of the winter he came out to visit when I was living in Hawaii.
We were on our way to my cousin's house on the North Shore when Grandpa decided that he wanted to stop and buy some beer to bring. I should have known that his eyesight had gotten much worse when he had the back door open and was trying to get out while the car was still rolling. I hung onto him and didn't let go until the car was stopped, and then he went into the little road-house/grocery to buy the beer.
He didn't come out. And we waited and he still didn't come out. Finally I was dispatched to go find him, and find him I did, chatting amiably with the buxom miss in the tiny bikini who was leaning on the beer display. He had gotten through telling her that he was from the little finger of Michigan, that they grow a lot of cherries where he came from, that he had to switch planes once in Chicago and once in San Francisco and he was up to the part where he was telling her what time it was back home. The pretty girl just kept on smiling and Grandpa just kept on talking, oblivious to the fact that he was talking to the cardboard cutout girl on the beer display.
I don't remember how I got him disengaged and back into the car. I do remember how the glow from this encounter stayed with him the rest of the day, and how he couldn't stop talking about how "Everyone is just so friendly here!"
Later he got his cataracts fixed and had a second sighted period in his life. He didn't bother to get his eyes fixed until he couldn't read anymore.
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