this is not the blog you’re looking for

Rather, not the blog I was going to write. I have Things to talk about, Big Important Things to say words about. Not to be confused with having Big and Important Things to Say myself. I prefer to let others act, and to be the critic, the observer, the person who doesn't have to synthesize the information or provide the ridiculous sound bite. In other words, I am not yet ready to be the person whose words I want to ridicule.

It will come. I am not worried. I'm writing again. The more words there are, the more likely they are to become fuel for someone else's fire.

So it was snowing. the kittens watched it for a good hour this morning, Miss Ethel's head jerking about trying to find one flake, one movement, one thing to follow to the ground, one thing to watch but everything else prevented it, she couldn't stop from looking at every flake as it fell past the window, the large breezy window in the front room, at the end of the runway of wood.

Boris is much too laid back to be distracted that way. He is a sucker, though, for getting right in my way every time I read or write on my writing desk. He will stand on it, butt heads with me (literally) and prance about to get love, until I stop what I am doing and pet him and he's had enough and walks away. Since he also hasn't figured out that if he doesn't kill me on the way to the food bowl, he will continue to get fed, I do not take it personally.

Tomorrow is thanksgiving. One of "those" holidays, so correctly smirked at. Not because it is a bad idea or inappropriate to celebrate through gratitude, or with much food from the recent harvest, or the coming of one's family before the winter begins, but because the origin story is really cheesy. I don't care how true it is. It's a fucking made for TV movie and we all know it.

I grew up in a church associated with the Congregationalists. For those of you who have had better things to do than study the history of the Christian churches in the colonies and then the US, they were very like the Puritans. Most of the East coast was Congregationalist for a very long time, the church founded Harvard and Yale and that college where Richard Jewell worked before he was accused of putting those bombs around the Olympics that year. We are a very tense people, as you would be if you were the descendants of a group of people who believed that no matter what you do in life, your afterlife has been determined from before your birth - predestination is the word for that belief and all of its extrapolations. Conservative Calvinistic Congregationalists. There is a reason we did not have business cards or a song.

There is something fundamentally wrong with making the teachings of John Calvin even more conservative. These people didn't dance or wear anything but black or grey. Okay, I can get behind that - not my style, but that doesn't give me the right to say don't do it - even West Coast Zoot suits were mostly monochromatic because of the rationing, and they made it cool. They made it really fucking cool, but I digress. What I can't get behind is the double whammy that comes after predestination has been presented - if you are marked for heaven, it is shown through beauty and wealth, but just because you are beautiful and wealthy doesn't mean that you are marked for heaven, it just means that ugly poor people aren't. And - now, this is where I start to twitch - it is morally required of all beautiful people to help the non-chosen ones to live good and God-fearing lives, for even though they are not destined for heaven their time in hell can be made less if they have lived according to God's Laws (What I learned from studying Shakespeare: the philosophical underpinnings of capitalism as seen through the eyes of the faithful).

They got on boats. My theological ancestors left from Leiden (Holland) and came here. On a boat. And then they got off of the boat and the rest is an odd mix of fact and fantasy told as History.

Thanksgiving was a bigger holiday in my church than any other. Even Easter. Well, we liked each other and Lenten dinners were a big hit, so why be glad when it's over. Congregationalists, appropriately contrary to their name, don't congregate unless they have to. And they like to be seen congregating. They are an odd bunch. I am glad that we left behind the mystics, though. I just don't think that a faith that is as pragmatic (to a degree) as I was raised to be has much room for mysticism. Also, there are a lot of wise people who are really ugly - how can you trust an ugly (bound for hell, remember) person to help guide you on your way to a greater understanding of god?

Now there is much eating and rejoicing in each other's company to offset the dread that in one month it will be time to do this all again, hopefully in someone else's house (Not Me!) and with gifts! More money, more expense, more dishes. Great.

This year there is much for which to be thankful in my family. Some years the gratitude is directed less personally. I will not share with you my list of things for which I am thankful. I find something in every day, therefore, the list is too long to be remembered, much less shared.

The sun has come out a bit. Just in time to melt the slush that will turn into ice the second that sun drops down past the stadium.

Oh - I added new pics of the babies and I from this morning.

See, told you it wasn't what I wanted to say - I am thinking of taking that one slightly more seriously. Also, I keep losing the page where the quote is. Cough.

poem after felix’s

this pleasure in the silence of the sun and the breeze and the paper-soft dead leaves is only made because of the absence of you, for how could i stop and look and see the world around me when there is you to see instead. how to feel the breeze on my face when my hand itches to hold yours, to touch your cheek, your warmth. there is no room in me for the world when you are near. there is no room in the world for me when you are living in it so close to me. but here, alone in the park with the cobbles underfoot and the dancing death of so many leaves just waiting for that final rain, snow, wind to bring them off of their branches and into their sleep, here i can see what you had eclipsed. here i remember and know that without the shadow of you, the sun would shine not at all.



a pair of lovers stopped their chat as i walked through the gates of the park today. i did not envy them their togetherness. i pitied their noise in such loveliness as i saw all around me. they stayed silent, perhaps out of respect, more likely out of paranoia, such is the egotism of all lovers. and i walked free.

I’m only here because this is where the phone is

I have been overly publicly grateful. I have unpacked many boxes. I have still not found the screws to put the desk together, even though they were on the china cabinet and I grabbed them specifically and put them ... somewhere? ...
The kittens are racing each other from one end of the apartment to the other. There is enough hallway that they don't even have to start at the far end to get going at break neck speeds. The kittens sleep on me. And when I say "on me" I am speaking literally. There is no cuddling on the side. There is lying on my hair, my arm, my leg, my face at times. Ethel is small enough that she can curl up around my skull and until I move in an unfortunate way and receive small claws in my scalp, I don't even know that she's there.

The books are entirely unpacked. They are oddly shelved, but I will have plenty of time and space for cataloging and re-organizing. I am thinking of grouping the craft and needlework books together, the cookbooks together and the dress-up books together, lined up by size, of course. As for the others, I am seriously considering putting them in order by date of acquisition. Which means that I get to keep most of the very fragile children's books in the front room and relegate the ever more trashed trade books to the sort of non-room-place. I really need to come up with something to call that room. It has a purpose, but who wants to take people a tour of their apartment and have the second room people walk through to be "the place where I keep everything I can't find any other place for. And my closet." My One Closet. And the track lighting. I may move something else in there at some point. Definitely not a sitting room. Too many mirrors. Ug.
The kitchen is completely fun and fits me well.

I've just had news that someone relatively unconnected to me has passed away. That seems a very cold sentiment and why should it matter, but it does. He was the husband to someone for whom I care very much. He has been in a vegetative state for more than a decade. Their two children have grown up without him and now have a good male role model who loves their mother very much. Their mother has struggled and, like most of us who can only handle the struggle for so long, has found happiness and has raised children who are enjoyable and intelligent and completely wacky people. I like them very much. She has no idea how she could have raised them to be so utterly un-screwed up. Her utter confusion is wonderful to watch. I send good thoughts to them and to the family of the man who has passed away. I know that it cannot be an easy thing to watch someone deteriorate slowly and feel totally powerless to stop it or to stop whatever suffering may come with it without ending that person's life totally. From what I understand, his body stopped on its own. He was ready to go.

It all does go away eventually. If you let it. The pain, the ecstasy, the frustration, the confusion. If you let it go - it leaves. I have what is occasionally an unpardonably long memory, and occasionally it is unpardonably short. There are some emotions that will allow me to forget that I have been treated with uncommon kindness or uncommon disrespect. There are head spaces which do not always allow me to be as aware of my surroundings and their impact on me as I would like. I imagine it is similar for most people.

Last evening I read poetry for the first time in ages. Read the same poem three times for the joy of it.

Been finding little bits of my past lying about in boxes. I have been putting them on my refrigerator (which is HUGE) just because they make me happy.

The move was good. Having people over to help me get started unpacking was good.

My phantom appendix does not want me to sleep on my left side right now, but that is an acceptable price to pay, I think.

Because I just can’t help myself...

Phases of Moving – The Picture of Before

Phase 1 involves getting all of my stuff out of my parents' house.
Phase 2 is getting the keys.
Phase 3 is packing at the old house.
Phases 4-8.6 involve the movers moving things.
Phase 9 = beer
Phase 10 = friends + books
Phase 11 begins when my parents arrive with the kittens and more snacks or beer, I haven't decided which to ask for.
Phase Oh My God Who Cares Anymore!?!?! will, I think, be when it's been all it can be and there's still more to do.


I would like to acknowledge that these phases were listed, and therefore numbered, in the order I thought of them. There is nothing sequential about them in reality. Nothing happens chronologically in a move. The clock is there to taunt you. It is a challenge, a duel to the death with the technology of time in western thought. This will be a very challenging move.

I am so fucking excited. I dislike being in limbo. I need to see that there is a very definite end in sight - and that sight is tomorrow evening.

oh, that’s right - I’m having issues

So, our glorious football team (American style) lost again last weekend. Pedersen is gone (remind me to cry over a sad movie later) and Osborne is back in the stadium, although not as coach.

I have a few observations to make:
1) fair weather fans suck and it's about time the athletes starting talking back
2) heard a rumor that someone has come up with the money to buy out Callahan's contract
3) if that happens, we are the coach-for-4-years school

1) I grew up in the Chicago. The Bears won the Super Bowl one year - 1. It was in January of 1985. They beat the Miami Dolphins 64-14. The only game they lost that year was against the Dolphins. I started moving before the Bulls had Jordan. No one in my neighborhood followed hockey as loudly as they did football, and did I mention the baseball? No. You know why? Because they lose. They lose a lot. They always have and it's okay. In the long run, I am a White Sox fan. When in the position to choose a side, I root for the Sox or whoever is playing the Cubs. It's the rule. Even when they suck. Why? Because they're my team. I know nothing about stats anymore and couldn't name a player if you paid me. I would go to a game in a heartbeat and will take any White Sox merch over anyone else in an instant. Why? Because they are my team. I don't care if they lose all the time. I don't care that the way things work with the Sox is that they do really well for a while (anyone remember what year they got a pennant thing? it wasn't all that long ago) and then, they suck. The Bears used to be a 3rd quarter or 4th quarter team. They made it work. And then they won the Super Bowl. 1 year in the 10 that I lived there. It's about not hogging the spotlight. It's about the sport, not self-definition. I am, of course leaving out the part about McMahon's unmanageable ego and Ditka's perfect hair. The point is that while I love how energetic Husker fans are, I do not love how much people seem to depend on the Husker football team for their self-definition. Perhaps I am reading it wrong, but why else would someone accost an athlete who is also a college student with the kind of negativity that has been getting reported in the Whirled Herald? What kind of a person feels justified in yelling at someone on the street that they suck? (Unless you are me and it's someone you know and don't care about) I see nothing good from that, I see nothing heartening about it, I see it being destructive and if I were the Huskers, I'd pay the hotdog shooter guy to shoot loaded dogs straight at the fans who are booing from the stands. That is not how to cheer on your team. It does not show support.

2) So, you've got 5 million dollars and you want to buy out Callahan's contract, huh? I have a great idea for another option for that money - first off, though, keep your fucking mouth shut unless you want everyone in town to know about it - Lincoln is a small city, everyone knows where everyone lives and everyone knows everyone else's business. When it comes to the athletics department, particularly in times of coaching stress, this town gets smaller and people's mouths get bigger (Solich was fired for bad coaching, my ass). Take the money and buy a few homes for Friendship Home, fill them with clothes, beds, bedding, kitchen appliances, dishes, etc., hire a personal trainer, a tutor, a nurse and few policemen for each one, because for every game that the Huskers lose, more women get beaten by their husbands than when the Huskers win, and we are going to need to find a place for them and for their children when they finally have had enough of Husker fan life and have to run away.

3) What the hell is this athletics department about anyway?

Also - I weigh more than I have for about 18 months, and am somewhat distressed to find that Godiva Chocoiste dark chocolate with caramel only has 180 calories in it. The gremlins are fine and growing, although Boris is growing faster and more than Ethel who is a lemur-slinky. I swear that creature has no bones - she's all nose, claws and fur. They are both very lovey still, and Horace and Boris's relationship is calming down and is now mostly based on grooming. We'll see what happens when the nephew comes to town (toddler attack!).

The thing about socks

I just threw away about 5 socks and four pair of underwear. The reason for this is as follows: plastic tubs on sale at Pamida, therefore there was buying, therefore there was using, therefore there was some consideration for the number of socks and underwear I own and so, some of them had to go. I threw away socks that had holes in them. As I don't match my socks, as a rule, and so don't have to deal with the pain of finding the single one, it's not like there should be any big deal about it. There are certain things not to keep - socks and underwear with holes fall on this list.

And yet. I haven't thrown away a sock that wasn't practically lace in years. And I mean like Years - more than 2. My socks are tough. They can stand on their own with any other sock I choose, they got drug around the house by Til who liked to think they were her kittens (did anyone else (Anne) notice that she stopped doing that when Wigs had her first litter?)(I just realized it.)(I think she went to scarves and sweaters after that), and now they suffer from the affectionate rubs and clawings and occasional attempts by Ethel to pick them up and carry them away while they are still on my feet. I collected them like they were a drug after Joe and I split. Anne was the one who noticed that I was developing a problem with the dollar sock bin at Walgreens.

But, But, But - Dollar Socks!!!

And now some of them are gone. Probably more than some of them, but that's not the point, my current pain is the point - focus, please.

I wonder: how many socks are too many socks? Same for underwear. Bras, too. We are talking about functional foundation wear only. Because I've lived with people (husbands) who seemed to think that the best way around having to wash underwear was to buy more. I never got that. But, maybe someone else does - I don't know.

Anyway, I'm kind of sad now. I'll live. The felines are being distracting and demanding and wonderful and Cloud is staring at me as if I was the one responsible for levitating her food bowl away from its rightful spot and into the microwave. Well, I am, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm going to read a book and contemplate something. I haven't decided yet what it will be.

It’s not ’made-up,’ it’s just never been said before...

Floofy is a word that should have been said before. By someone not me. Probably was. That person doesn't seem to know anyone that I do, though. I suppose that's a good thing. Can you imagine if there were more than just one of me (or any of my acquaintance, for that matter) running around this town? Yep. It would be good. But oh so wrong.

The newspapers would report incidents of road rage between thirtysomething men trying to out-punk each other with their radios, comparing trophy tattoos. The reporter with the state legislature beat would be proficient in many dialects of international sign language, able to distinguish the Beer from the Sandwich because of how they mime the concept of bread.

And yes, there would be pop-up shrines in the desk drawers of my co-workers. One specifically. It would be a vision of connected cords and coding with an altar for the daily offering of chocolate to the goddess Pandora. (not a deity, I know, that's not the part that is the joke, trust me)

There would be a strip mall wherein a shopper could find such businesses as "Where Do You Want To Go?" a bar with a busy drug trade in the alley, "I Don't Care" adult toys and gifts, "Somewhere Different" a sandwich shop specializing in soup, "Like Where?" the hobby store (with jigsaw puzzles made of wood!), "I Don't Care II" for mom-to-be and baby, "Fine, We'll Just Stay Home" your specialty and whole food grocery store. I would love it there. actually, I wouldn't hang out at that strip mall, I'd be too busy hanging out at the one across the street specializing in obvious (un-ironic) store names: laundry, books, pizza, beverages, newspapers & magazines, quiet place for reading or fucking, cell phone friendly plaza - you know, the kind of stores that only have exactly what the name says they do. Of course, I would complain endlessly about the lack of maps in the book store and why there are no newsletters at the newspaper & magazine store, and the fact that you couldn't get a t-shirt if you stole it out of someone else's laundry basket, But I'm okay with that. And hey, free condoms in the reading place! Score.

It occurred to me the other day that I wasn't in the mood to complain. I was concerned for a moment. It didn't last long, sometimes moods just hit and there's really nothing you can do about them but relax and breathe and wait for some schmo to fuck up your morning by feeling the need to have a 'conversation' over coffee and a cigarette. Whanyeh?! I don't like to 'talk' that early, especially not with cleverness and caring - ew.

As to my whining earlier this afternoon - imagine the squeaking of metal parts in my brain just trying to work their way through a slightly changed routine - not much of a change, but enough to be noticeable. Floofy, my ass.

Oh, in case anyone else is keeping track - 4 incidents of deja vu in the last 2 days. None of them particularly layered or inspiring, just, you know, freaking me out again. Dreams of driving. Kind of miss the dreams of water. I liked those. And the caves. Those were neat, too.

pledge drives and resumes

I have decided to listen to NPR on my computer at work. It keeps me from spending too much time listening to my brain while I'm here. I am remembering the sound of it while I stay at the farm. There is no other human noise, no worry about much of anything except chores, which are just nothing anymore. I remember what the silence holds for me. It is good.

Decided to approach the resume as a skill-set list instead of the reduced bits of my personality and job history made pretty on a page or two.

Friend John loaned me tapes of a show called The Power of Art - the episodes about Picasso and Carravagio. I love them. There was an ad for one about Bernini. I love him, as well. Tortured artists dying of fever on the beach. What more could a girl ask for? Really.

Much good friend time this last few weeks. Looks like much good friend time for a while yet. Is good. Is doing. Is hitting the thrift stores on Sunday with Jenny and Ula - yes, yes, the thrift store is good.

Have many other things to say, but they need time and attention and proper grammar. I have put up more pictures - some of my office, some of my gremlins, some of other people's gremlins (Chandreyee's and my parents' specifically).

Also - yes, yes, I love commentaries. What did we do before DVD's? Really? Reviews and interviews and all sorts of even less believable shite? Ah, the good old days are good and gone, and I enjoy the endless entertainment of other peoples' self-aggrandizing. There's good stuff in there, Maynard - you just have to listen for it.

Ethel, the quiet, loving kitten, has found her voice and boy is it loud! She's got the best purr, though. And she lets out some loud loud loud growls - impossible for such a small creature. She really is just the smallest little thing! And she has a thing for hanging out in the dryer. Cleaning herself. She gets mad when I take her out of it. She is so her mother's child.

I'm done now.
Thank you for listening.

Comfort food and other evils

It is my new theory that what resides in the appendix is not, as had been previously suggested, silent suffering. It is my new theory that what in fact resides in the appendix which I no longer support inside my body is fear. I feel no fear. I do not fear anything. Pain holds no mystery. Love is a sign of universal stupidity. Inaction is what happens in between chores. Death and I have never been at odds. Other people will fuck up their own lives. There is no such thing as perfection and being at peace is just another way of being.

Today is a day of fragile. The vodka cranberry sprite of yesterday evening left me with a dry mouth and slightly wonky head this morning. The beer and wine that preceded set all of it up, of course, but that last drink is what sent the head over the edge and down into the doldrums where I find myself today. Being fragile. Slightly broken. No more than usual.

I will leave the library at the end of the month. There is no need to find myself in a situation where I am very aware of my replaceability. It is a depressing habit of all former 'victims' to persist in reminding the world and therefore themselves that 'I am not a victim anymore!' Bullshit.
Last night I learned of a goddess who lives in books. I remember the sound of her name, though I do not know how to spell it.

When I was a child living in a home where the kitchen was yellow, as all good kitchens are, there was a kitchen witch who hung by the window, keeping her broom at the ready, a kerchief holding back the wiry hair, revealing a hideous nose and one or two teeth and a smile like a cackle on a wrinkled old face. She kept us safe. Baba Yaga of the missing hearth.

The ethnologists who studied the Nacerima believed that this culture worshiped at an altar made like a sink. I wonder of the name of the god or goddess who may have lived there. I can find the meaning and saint or angel or protector or goddess or god or holy person of every room and item in my new home. The new religion is not about understanding and love. The new religion is in the icons that we collect, the stories that we tell about them and the constant conflict that rages in the absence of pan-dimensional understanding when Bast meets Odin and the kittens hide.

I would find a kitchen witch. Mayhap I will craft a new one out of what I have already. All parts accounted for. Some assembly required.

Horace meets Boris

The morning was early, earlier than yesterday, but I didn't have anywhere to be, so there was no reason to resent getting out of bed. Mama is making omelettes for breakfast, I can smell the eggs from here.

Boris and I are settling in quite happily upstairs. He has discovered that aloe is not-so fun to chew and has stopped. This morning, he helped me write a little poem and then fell asleep on the desk worn out from the effort. He does not seem to mind my reading habits, and, unless aided and encouraged by one of his siblings, doesn't have much interest in book corners for chewing. He does not much like falling asleep on my arm to be awakened by my sneezes.

It is incredible to me to see how small his is in relation to Horace and Cloud, neither of whom would win any cat pageants for slimness, mind, but Horace seems to have accepted his diet and is losing weight and Cloud is of a good, healthy size. They are both just big cats. Boris is about one third of Horace's size. I'm so accustomed to him being almost the size of his mother and Street that this is taking a bit of getting used to. Also, I forget what it means that he is only 3 and half months old. He is amazed at everything and kind of freaked out by the breeze coming through windows and doors.

I will be happy when he stops being quite so jazzed about playing with my hair at 5 in the morning, though.

The grandparents have, of course, fallen in love, and Boris goes from being adored to being scolded and chased off of counters and tabletops. Just like any small child visiting relatives, not quite managing to stay as calm as the adults have learned to be. Even my father has put aside his general dislike of felinity in all of its guises to admit that he quite likes Mr. Boris.

Horace and Boris have learned how to play. A little. A very little. Cloud is not impressed and takes every possible opportunity to let Boris know how little she wants him around. She feels that her lap time is being threatened and does not quite know what to do with small-ones. Ethel will be a bit of a shock to her, but she will survive. Cats are very good at surviving without acknowledging adaptation, I have found.

Thankfully, there were fleas here already.

Last night ramblings and other things

Here are some other things:

Inspired by Jenny's blog, I would like to add the following things: hibiscus, peanut butter, photocopiers, double Mondays on Tuesday (I've been walking into everything today), sleeping kittens, long evening phone calls.

I have a new friend. 3 new friends in 4 months. I feel very odd about this. not the person, mind, Just the whole thing where I'm meeting people and then they are my friends - I take a while, I always have - it just doesn't happen that quickly - Ula and I sniffed around each other for like 6 months before we got comfortable - is anyone else having the most deeply layered deja vu ever in the history of ever? Or is that just me. Yeah, this train of thought is annoying me. I have a new friend. It is happy-making, not the kind of thing that should be weird-making.

Sounds like I get to go see King Lear this week. Woot. I lurv Shakespeare performed. Even if it's performed badly - there is nothing to beat live entertainment. 'specially when it's in a cemetery.

Have begun the habit of words again. Enjoying the dopamine rush after writing. I am truly upset about the reality of the idea that it is difficult to create anything worthwhile in a time of happiness. Although, as was once pointed out to me by someone else, I am fueled by angst. my angst tends to be of the shallow variety - while being very sweetly kissed in my dream by a married man (inaccessible and Not In My Goddamn Space All the Time are simply not the same thing. for one, it is much easier to yell the latter and the former is too associated with personal problems.) I suffer because I want to say spam. Yes. Yes. Although it's better than the half-awake rage fueled by the thought of "you fucked her IN MY BED!!!!" stupid half-awake rage. Odd way to begin the day. And I got sleep and everything (whine whine whine).


There is much to be thought about and experienced and spoken of, but for now, these are the ramblings:

I am remembering. I remember now. The stillness of mind, the feel of the pen in my hand, the rhythms of words sprung with an energy that never fails to catch me off my guard and shock me to my core months and years later.
I remember thinking and seeing at once, as if the acts were never separated or unbalanced. The leaves on the tree in the yard out font. The storm whose beginning was the single crack of thunder from somewhere just above my head. The slow smile of acknowledgment - the rain begins.
I remember now that staring at one rain-soaked leaf for 10 seconds becomes an eternity of sound, color, movement, with me, the observer, the speaker, the seer, watching it all - the drops of water leaving themselves spread ever thinner on the veined bit of growth; the gold of the street light and the silver of the lightning; the fine lines of tiny raindrops heavier than mist; and the wind, the blessed wind again, calling me, bending the cobwebs and blowing the dust further away from the bits that once knew this path well. Gears of a sort, levers and firing mechanisms and something like a quiet pulsing metronome that had studied and understood the inherent value of variation.
I remember the language I never fully spoke, never wanted to claim as my own. A language trapped in words, fed in sound, sight, touch, taste, smell.
I remember a walk with a poet. On the way to lunch, across a street and a hole in the sidewalk surrounded by orange cones and yellow tape, guarded by a machine with a name.
"There's a poem right there," he said.
It is that poem. That is what I remember now.

Weekend in the country

The morning glories, the gorgeous little blooms of solid pink or purple or white that have resisted blooming all summer long from their perch wrapped about the cottonwood tree which grows so close to the patio outside the back door of my parents' house, have finally decided to show off.

Junior, one of the feral cats that got fixed and gets fed by my mother, is still not quite certain what to do with me. She crouches low and watched with sea-green eyes, careful lest I get too close to my mother, her source of love and affection and lap and food. The three cats who spend much time around the house range all around the out buildings and walk long yards to the patio for food every day.

The wind is blowing like mad today, sending the sunlight scattering all over the blue walls of the living room where I slept, curled up in my father's chair, for most of the early afternoon, done in by a good book.

I slept well when I slept. Dreamt of an orange carpet found under layers and layers of gray disgusting foot traffic.

I have burnt my bagel bites, but my mother is taking me in to town to shop for groceries for the week. There must be milk. And meat. And cereal. And cheese. It is what must happen for life to continue and to grow and to become something other than what it is now. Patience is not my strong suit, but I will get over it and remember that after 34 years of life, I do have the ability to see things from something like a rational perspective.

The obligatory blog about cats

Since I live in a house with five cats, it had to happen at some point. Words must be written about them. Here it is:

Day before yesterday, I walked into my room to see Street curled up on my bed. It is not unusual for there to be a cat curled up on my bed, but things have been odd lately and the adult cats have been avoiding me, so seeing one of them making herself comfortable in my room was a nice surprise. I turned on the light and realized why she was there.

The look of death on her face should have been enough, but then I saw her tail. Still wet from the flea dip. And the giggling started. She was not pleased with me and trounced out of the room throwing me a nasty glare over her shoulder as if to say that she was not speaking at me anymore ever. The insult was somewhat mitigated by the presence of Ethel crashed out on the blue down throw, looking for all the world like a very fuzzy dead weevil larva (of the rhinocilus persuasion)(which are just cute) and snoring. She snores. At three months.

I went down to the kitchen to find some high calorie gut-fill and found Street on the bottom step, watching me very carefully. I know that it's been some months since her dad had to bathe her to get all of the alley grease off of her loveliness and fur, and I think she was hoping she could forget it forever. I picked her up and we sat down and she chirped and balanced on her paws, refusing to get comfortable and shaking. She left my lap shortly thereafter and I suggested that she go pout somewhere else. (We haven't spoken much since then. Some quick morning rubs, but nothing lasting.)

Ethel sleeps like the dead and takes very long naps. With my food in hand, I shut my bedroom door, turned off the lights and prepared to commit to my daily afternoon rest period (still a must-do after everything. not so bad, but somewhat annoying). She rolled around some, stopped snoring for a minute, sort of opened her eyes and then burrowed back down, nose in paws, back feet curled, tail all kinds of everywhere, giving off the faint odor of flea dip.

I ate and snuggled into my sheets for my nap when there came the sound of someone else snuggling in somewhere. Looking over at the source of the sound, I noticed a bulge in the blanket that is draped over the folding chair in the corner. The bulge was on the floor and very small and moving slightly. My eyesight likes to make things move when they oughtn't, but not that much, so I investigated and found a damp, sleeping Novice.

Novice doesn't sleep as long or as hard as Ethel does, so her time on the blue down blanket was restful, but hardly the repose her sibling got. She slept nearer to my knees and watched every movement Ethey made as she snored and rolled and stretched and dreamt and snored some more. Novice and I are finally developing a relationship with purring, so I tend to leave her be mostly and let her come to me as she is comfortable (not including the requisite kitten-grabbing attacks, of course).

By the time it was time to go out that evening, they were both sound asleep, Novice in a gray and white ball of mostly dry fluff, Ethel under the throw, front leg stretched out, holding the blanket to her.

I caught sight of Wigs on Anne's bed, licking at her tail. I didn't see Boris at all until last night. I have decided to call him Boris. Now he is called Booger, so I don't think it will be all that difficult a transition for him as he likely reacts mostly to the "b" sound. He didn't seem all that affected by the bathing process, but if you had your own balls to lick all day long, would you?

Ah, the joys of being on campus

Got to go to a lecture yesterday. One of those pesky revisionist type things. You know the ones. The kind where some hotshot University Professor thinks that doing research based on historical record is going to give a more accurate picture of the past than Hollywood movies or newspapers or dime novels. Who the hell do these people think that they are anyway?

The Oregon Trail. Dooom Doooom.

Not the site of so many massacres that no movie studio could ever keep up with it. At least not between 1840 and 1869. Do tell. Well, apparently, the two Big massacres that have been passed down from generation to generation where big bad Indians killed frail helpless white settlers by the hundreds - the Doniphan and Almo Massacres, if you're keeping track - were made up. Fabricated. Invented. To sell papers in the former case and to increase tourism in the latter.

Seriously. He said so. And he wrote a book about it, and other human interest concerns (trading, medicine, starvation, people shooting themselves in the face accidentally because guns were designed less with safety in mind back then). And the book won him an award. And I believe him. Why? Not because of any particular guilt I have left over, but because the story that he tells makes more sense. Living on the plains now is difficult enough. It is important to know who your neighbors are and how to live in the winter and such and such. Can you imagine what it was before all of that? There were guide books to the Trail, but still. Human interaction works best when it is not defined by conflict (trust me on this one, I know of what I speak). So why turn the prairie into a place of perpetual warfare? I know, I know, that's what it became, and this is dealing with a very specific place (the Oregon Trail) during a very specific time frame (1840-1869). That is important to remember.

People are stupid. We are born stupid. We die stupid. We can learn to be not so stupid, but it is very easy to go back to stupid ways. All we need are enough drink, drugs, sex or sensationalism and boom, the brain is gone.

So the newspapers sold stories. Stories of vicious attacks by savage people. They got folk to leave their homes and head West, looking to kill injuns or have the grand adventure on the high plains, since going by sea would have defeated the whole purpose.

Go back to Little House on the Prairie or Caddie Woodlawn. Tell me what you find and then look at what the adults buy and tell me we deserve to maintain as a species.

Also there was some very bad art hanging on the walls, and some woman asked if I had anything hanging there and then proceeded to talk at me about the colors in an odious landscape.

Can someone please explain to me what exactly is the value of dropping my "get the fuck away from me" vibe if it's just going to encourage bad conversation? Ug.

"Act your age"

I find that statement problematic. I do not deny that part of the problem lies in my own desire not to be categorized or put in a pigeon-hole. But the big question that I've always had, ever since the first time I heard someone (likely my parents, not their fault) say that to me, is: "What does that mean?" "How do I find out what that means?" "Who decides if I am or am not 'acting my age' according to whose definition?"

Is there some behavioral rubric that is used to determine specific age-related personality traits? Am I just supposed to look around at all of the other schlebs in my age range and compare? Do I get to include life experience in with age range? And who does decide, anyway? Why should it not be me? What is so wrong with not acting like a cynical 30-something on the other side of her first mid-life crisis? Is it so wrong that I have no desire to pretend that I am comfortable with the behavior patterns of many people who are 5-10 years younger than me?

Many many questions which will stop now as they become whiny and self-serving or bitchy after a while, and I have better things to do today.

Yesterday morning as I was waiting in the drips coming from windblown leaves by my bus stop, I watched the pups in the yard at hand and wanted nothing more than to go to them and rub my hands and face in their rain covered fur. The smell of wet dog would have stayed all day long, calming me out of my anger and rage and sense of displacement. Taken me back to my childhood and the heavy smell of the large red dog without whom I have no memory before the age of 15. Reminded me of where it is safe, where it is always warm, even under the sheets of rain that came down last night and threatened to drown me walking from the backdoor to the driveway. They sat there, the pups, wagging their tails, ears down, noses pointed in my direction as if smelling my desire to walk over and scratch their backs, and their thick ears, rub their faces and get fur down my sleeves.

I waited. And stood. And, eventually, the bus came.

New Normal Afternoon

I am writing while waiting for the other computer to decide to function and produce the information I require. It is a day of prisoner references. So I get to be that much more aware of my heartbreak. Oh, the joy of melodrama. The ear plugs only block out so much.


It is a lovely gray day and I am pleased that I have brought my bright blue rain poncho. Its presence makes it that much more difficult for people to believe that I have crossed the 30 year mark.

There are windows in my office that show me students lined up like so much cattle waiting for buses and cars and friends. I see the clouds over campus. I love days like this. It is a bit too warm for the weather, but I don't really care. Makes the chore of walking that much less awful.

Transparency is a highly under-rated virtue. No one believes it anyway. My ulterior motives are blindingly obvious, if you know what to look for. And if you bother to listen. It all breaks down very clearly.

Reminds me that there is no such thing as an underground anymore - we keep allowing the media to dredge it to the surface.

Lots of random thoughts today. Trying to get organized, I have a letter to write this evening. This will help me focus.


Well, the other computer is done, so I will get started.

I always forget until I am reminded

"mouth-breather"

It's one of those unspoken universal "things" that mark a person as a complete fool, unable to commit the most basic of unconscious activities without mucking it up. I love this insult

not as much as 'goat-fucker' though.

I had a whole long essay-type thing about bodily functions, but the meds have kicked in, so you all are just going to have to wait in suspense.

The kitten crashed with me last night. I felt special.

I have had to quit smoking

and I don't know when I'll be able to go back to it. It upsets my stomach too much. I am sad. I miss it.

The nurse at my surgeon's office (her name is Colleen) tells me that it could be up to a year before my body is done recovering from the anesthetic and the surgery, assuming I quit pushing it too far.

Taking things slowly is something which is an ideal for me, rarely realized as my own impatience has been conditioned by years of discomfort at intensity or building tension (yes, I am blaming my ex's, I learned it from them and their inability to function around me)(also, yes, I do get that I am the only common denominator in all of my relationships, that does not make it my fault that most of the men in my life have had no ability to let a moment happen or be without fucking it up or making a joke or breaking the tension and then apologizing lamely). It's a Pavlovian response and will take time to be unlearned.

It's funny, when I got the call that Joe was in jail and began the single oddest and most fucked up summer of my life, I knew that things were different, but I had no idea how different they really were, how much went away that night, how easily lost everything was. And I was nuts, drinking whiskey, sleeping with boys who had girlfriends, not sleeping at all, wearing really odd clothing and hanging out with some of the most disrespectful unethical people (okay, person) I have ever met. (I blame the whisky myself. tequila leaves my discriminating tastes in tact.) I don't hang out with her anymore.

Point is, it took a while for me to realize that I was nuts and why.

This time it's a little less difficult to follow given the straight line leading 3 1/2 inches down from my belly button.

Everything is different. It's just that way. There's nothing I can do about it. My body needs to recover from the sickness from before surgery and then the surgery and the anesthetic and the drugs after the anesthetic and the antibiotics and probably the world's worst cottage cheese, as well.

I am separated from the two people I love most in the world (outside of my parents, of course) because I have no idea "where I'm at" and will likely not have a clue for quite some time. which wouldn't be that big of a deal except that we live in the same house. It is too much to listen to the constant whining of a reformed martyr.

I know to walk. To get into the sun. To eat. To rest. To sleep. To not lift anything for a while (ug). To pet the kitten (I adopted one, she is called Ethel Katherine Humphries. I call her Ethey). To read. To make lists. To learn. To work at my jobs to the best of my abilities. To do some dishes when I can. To clean the litter boxes at least once a week.

"Master, how do I follow The Way?"
"Did you have breakfast this morning?"
"Yes."
"Did you wash your bowl when you were done eating?"
"Yes."
"Well, then."

Personality tests results - for Aubrey and John

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the "not visible" or the "not yet" that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a "soulmate," someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are rare, making up between 20 and 25 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers.

The Four types of Idealists are:

Healers (INFP) | Counselors (INFJ) | Champions (ENFP) | Teachers (ENFJ)

And, yep, Aubrey - INFP alright. At least today. Everything's in flux cuz of the recent life-fuck, but I felt comfortable with those answers, so I'll take them.
Also, apparently, I care not who reads this, but I have no idea how to put the links in for anyone else - Aubrey, help!

Facing the future

It is almost impossible to think of tomorrow while stretched out on a hammock feeling the sun like a blanket and the breeze from all sides. It has been a lovely respite from attempting the impossible, being here. My mother mows in a straw hat with a black band around the crown. She has cleared something like 4 acres of yard and mows it in sections as often as she can. My father has potted plants and planted flowers all around the house. He bought mums for the pots on either side of the driveway. The cats give love and chats with very little meaning to me or any other human. The feral cats adore my mother and her gentle voice and manner. They stand still and let her pet them, rubbing against her ankles and throwing me dirty looks.

I walked out into the world of the trees last evening and watched the clouds rush in, changing and growing and billowing and going gray and white. The sound of the rain and the flashes of lightning filled the room in which I sleep. It is the room in which I slept when I lived here so many years ago. I thought it was green, maybe it was, now it is tan and the bed is much smaller and while I am not sure how well I will take to being in the world again, I miss my bed and my room.

I am dreaming oddly, the hospital dreams have stopped, but there are more people than I am accustomed to and last night there was a man on my arm, and it was good. And Brad was stocking up on water cooler jugs filled with wine and there were smoked turkeys and platters of fruit and I asked if he was throwing a party and said if he was I'd like to know so that I could not be there and he said something about how O'Neill was always saying how if anyone's hungry he's the one to feed them and Brad was pissed and decided he would feed the hungry for a while and see how O'Neill liked it. I thought he meant Thanksgiving and was even more confused as it is not yet September. Upon waking, I thought I would have to remember to ask Brad if he was talking about Jack O'Neill from Stargate or someone that I've never met. Then I fully woke up and realized that wouldn't make any sense at all.

As a younger person I always resented the reality of chores, the day-to-day crap of job and laundry and dishes and cleaning my room. Now it is going to be my life line. I do not know what has happened to my brain, but something is different, bound to show up at some point on the scanner. I have a guess, but I know too much about electrons to believe it can be all true.

Have decided to cut back on the ibuprofen. It works to cut my pain, but my pain is no longer great. I am tired and somewhat more stiff than I would like, but in no way incapacitated or stalled. The only real issue with me being tired is that I am now much more emotional than I am used to being. Still fragile. Not in the mood to fight it anymore.

It is odd to think that today next week I will be thinking of different things, sitting in a different place, using a different computer, reading different books (okay, maybe not), facing the future as me, still, but differently. Why that strikes me today so much more strongly than it has struck me in the past is quite beyond my comprehension, but then, right, there are many things which are.

I am looking forward to the world and the me that I am become, mostly because that's the way my feet are headed.

In honor of today’s adventures...

Old Style does go skunky. I know, I know, it seems a statement of the obvious condition of Old Style, but trust me, I know of what I speak.

After days of spending time wandering like Horace from one soft place to sit and read to another, finding the hammock again, getting run into by grasshoppers mistaking my skull for a bouncing board (maybe not mistaken, who knows?) and having quiet moments with the deer just beyond the fence, I ventured today into town with my mother. The objectives were simple enough: lunch with friends and then to the house to take care of some potentially loose ends in preparation for my eventual return.

Lunch was accomplished with grace and style and good conversation, followed immediately by plans for world domination and cheesecake. One of our number is not of age yet, so there was no rampant drinking to celebrate the event. Though we have been promised a Part II. I am hopeful. Full of hope.

Given my need to go to places I enjoy with frequency, I was fortunate to run into two of my acquaintance whereupon I was given hugs. I enjoy hugs from friends and will accept them with very little chagrin (most of the time) especially now as I have a reason to be hugged with abandon.

The time at spent at the library was filled with pleasant conversation with understanding folks. It's always a crapshoot when you go to the library hoping to see certain people, because you never know who will or won't be on the schedule for that day. Much like Lincoln bar life. There are certain people who are always out. And then there are the people you want to see. It's a crapshoot. Opportunities abound and it pays to listen to the people who know what and where they are. Received a gift of unexpected kindness. Still reeling from that, but I will recover.

And then there was the adventure of the key. I now have a copy of the key to the back door of the house. I am pleased about this on many levels. Except. The part where my mother's car decided that it didn't want to let her turn the key in the ignition. Many many phone calls were made. And then: the mechanic at the service station suggested that she hit the key with a shoe.

You can imagine the mirth. Particularly because it worked. The Shoe Solution.

The end of the day involved a trip to the grocery store for wine and garlic (mother outside with the car running. just in case) and now the wait as meat and potatoes cook and we drink well-earned glasses of wine after a day that will be followed by two days of rest and light reading.

I define light reading as The Muqaddimah by Ibn Kahldun. An Introduction to History. He likes Bedouins. I do, too.

Morning in Crete

The coffee I had this morning is all that's keeping me awake right now. I am not moving much - typing is not an intensive exersize (sp?)(Learning French totally screwed me up on that word - I haven't been able to spell it in any language since I was eleven. My second grade teacher couldn't spell spaghetti. She was okay with it. She had a home and a family and a career. It didn't ruin her forever, it was just something she had to admit to herself and everyone else. Forever. I think she must have been happy when we all started eating pasta.).

I was not all that familiar with Crete when I lived here, oh, 9 years ago, but I did shop in town and go to the movie theatre (alone! shock of shocks!) and ate at the local diner (PK Bach's, no longer extant) and drove around a lot. I had a car back then. It's the only car I've ever owned. Someday I will have to remedy that.

9 years ago the downtown area was losing businesses left and right, there were more empty store fronts than not, and the little 'mall' across from the library was empty but for one take-out Chinese place that I never tried.

It was kind of depressing to drive through.

Now it is a different town. Every store front along the main street is filled, and almost every store front on the streets crossing that one is filled also. There are people downtown, driving and walking around. Which creates no end of chaos as there is one stop light with no turn arrow and one 4-way stop sign and the rest is pretty much luck of the draw. Glad it's not me driving.

My mother knows everyone who works anywhere that she and my father spend money. Everyone. She knows about their kids and their vacation plans. We went to breakfast at the 9th Street Grill (assuming it's on 9th street, although lately my assumptions have been way off, so who knows? I blame the drugs, and the tireds, etc.) and she knew who was working and who was on vacation and why. It was a beautiful thing. She was explaining to us why there were only 2 people on as my father went up to grab our menu. I don't think they would have batted an eye if he'd got my cup of coffee at the time, but I didn't say anything. Didn't want folks thinking I was desperate for it, even though it had been over 2 weeks.

Been 2 weeks since I smoked, as well. I'm healing. I haven't quit. Don't go there with me.

Shopping with my parents was more than entertaining. Particularly the parts that involved driving across the street to go to the Pamida (boycott Wal-Mart) and then driving across the street to go to the Sun-Mart. We repeated the less than a block long drive from the post office to the gas station (that one I get) to the library, which has redone itself in the last 9 years and is much less standoffish than the one that I remember. To be honest, I don't think I could've made it, not after all that food in the morning time and then missing my 11 o'clock nap.

The library did not have the Bourne Identity, though it did have the Bourne Supremacy, and as I am feeling the need for espionage/spy type stuff, I went for it. Diving into the Ludlum. Save me from Tristram Shandy for a few hours!

Crete wouldn't be a bad town to live in, really. Particularly if they can keep Wal-Mart at bay and on the outskirts and maybe even gone away for lack of profit. I hope that they can, it's a nice little town that seems to be taking care of itself.

It does need a coffee shop.

What the Dr. Said

My incision is healing just fine, I get to take the tapes off as they start curling up. My scar will be very neat and tidy, I think, with a little tear drop at the bottom.

I am very tired, which is what my life will be for the next 5 weeks, I am told. Particularly given "what you went through." There are only so many times a person can hear that from members of the medical profession before wondering just how bad things were that I am not expected to be fully recuperated a week and a half after surgery - it's just an appendix, right? So, I asked:

"How bad was it?" (this from me)

(my doctor said) "It was bad. If you'd waited any longer, you might not have survived the surgery."

I keep remembering that the important thing is that I'm alive, and that everyone involved in making me not die was good at their job and available at the time. However: I'm an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical shadow of my former self, I cry at the drop of a hat, my temper is shorter than a bald man's hair and I miss my cat.

Today is one of those days when I really wanted a sweetie, someone to tell me that the important thing is that I'm still alive and loved. Just to keep me from dwelling on the melodrama of "how close was it?" you know.

I am told that this all takes time. I am unused to allowing for time. I nap all day and find that eating takes more energy than it gives. I feel that this is become whining, it is all new to me, I am uncomfortable with my present state.

I am allowed to go back to work in about a week. I will have to start looking for jobs again.

My father, the person to whom I am listening for the first time in my life, suggests that it is more important to focus on healing than on anything else. He offered me the chance to come out here to rest and recuperate in safety and relative silence. I think it didn't hurt that I was bawling at the time and needed more than I could articulate.

This is just not my way. I need to be taken care of. Not emotionally supported, not believed in, not anything nice and intangible and cheap like having people around who have faith in me. I mean actually taken care of, with the laundry and food and reminders to bathe and a room in which I can sleep that is removed from the rest of the house and gentle conversation and time, lots of time.

I don't need to tell you that I am reminded of the people in this world who do not have the friends and family that I do who have been available and who have been gentle with me and given me space and safety and silence. I cannot imagine what the lives of people who do not have time to recover from something like this must be, how tired and worn down they must feel. The bills will be bad enough, at least my day-to-day isn't piling up on me as well.

I am alive to complain and hurt and read and feel. One of these days it will sink in and then my temper will explode and the rest of my life with it.

well, i’m home again

Before anyone asks - I thought it was gas. How often does an appendix burst in a person in one lifetime anyway? Once. Max. Scared the fuck out of me and not looking forward to doing it again. Ever. Hospital food sucks. Except for the Jello. I love Jello.

Doctors were nice. The ER doc was impressed that I had held out against the pain for so long. Go me for being stubborn and cheap.

Spent 4 nights in hospital. Then 3 nights at UlaRobie's. Now am home. Pushed myself too far yesterday in a fit of being really pissed off and not wanting to be anywhere near this place. Today I am tired and frustrated that there was so little sleep in the night times.

Now there is a lovely feline on my lap. She is confused about why I keep moving her paws from certain places. She has grown into such a lovely cat, 'specially now that her face has lost its kitten roundness. I enjoy that she's as demanding about pets as she is some days. Truly cat-like behavior. The other adult cat is crashed out on the landing upstairs. She's back to looking like a snake with no scales. She's mostly crashed out all the time, unless she's meowling for no good reason.

I was going to head down to the library today (bus passes make us happy) but I am tired and would rather stay home and play with fabric and lie about and try to remember why I wanted to come back here in the first place.

because i’m thinking about it

Why are some people so fucking blind to what's in front of them? Myself included, I guess, although, I have no desire to be corrected, thank you very fucking much.

Disrespect seems to come in waves, yes?

Still can't sneeze. Muscles won't let me. It would hurt them too much. Last time I couldn't sneeze, it took like three weeks.

Want to commit act of anger. Really do. Not sure what it oughta be. Not very good at outward anger (as has been posted before).

Don't like being all stooped over and tired and blah and blech. Don't like it at all.

rainy rainy morning

Not having the best of luck with early mornings this week. Today the fun started at 4:15 with monster cramps. Some ibuprofen and cuddles with a heating pad helped, but I still didn't get up until after 8.
Stupidly read my horoscope. Bad dumb horoscope. No coffee yet and the mail isn't here. Theoretically, I have nothing to do. Fortunately, I know better and can find plenty of trouble to get myself into. Moving of bound volumes. ooooo. Yeah, don't ask, it's a library thing.
No coffee. This is a problem. The Coffee House isn't far away, but still. It's outside. Which means walking. No. No. I have no need to walk.
Oh, yeah, I forgot - Ribfest is this weekend. Or, as one of my co-workers put it: Porkapalooza. This makes me happy.
Odd odd dreams. Wondering at the significance of the number of espionage related dreams I have, especially considering my lack of understanding of all things spy.
The mail was hiding in the elevator. Wish someone had told me it was a game of hide and seek. I would have run home and found a nice spot under my bed. No one would ever find me there.

ug and unh

I am finally beginning to feel rested, although I have been having very vivid and not entirely peaceful dreams. I would blame the novels I've been reading, but that would be a lie, and I'm feeling deceitful enough lately.
How could that be?
Well, because I find that not expressing anger, particularly at the person who behaved stupidly (no, not anyone who works for the city, never), is not honest. While I have no real compunction to obsessive honesty, I do have a need to behave genuinely. There is no room on my sleeve to display my heart - I like a neon sign, or tangible vibe. I do not want there to be a question. It's a thing. I don't like deceptive people. I do not particularly enjoy being deceptive. It makes my tummy icky and my mouth all bleckgue.
At the same time, I'm lazy. I don't really want to be the Person Who Does Stuff unless it has very minimal consequences that can be readily ignored by later generations. Only, my life sucks when I don't speak up. Trust me. And then I get angry. Only my anger tends to be directed at myself as I am not used to be angry out loud at people - are you seeing a pattern? I am. The emotion is there, only because it's not being directed where I believe that it belongs, it's getting directed at me, which leads to drinking and pathetic behavior and never getting around to telling someone how much what they are doing is accomplishing nothing good. Then it's back to being the Person Who Never Does Anything. Which is far worse.
Whine moan groan complain.
Please tell me that someone else is having this day?
Gotta be something going around, can't be just me.
Light at the end of the tunnel moment: kitten chasing tail, getting distracted by her shadow. Best part of the morning. Until I realized that I had enough punches on the cards for a free frou-frou drink at the Coffee House this morning. Good things still happen, and they just won't stop, no matter what I do. Sigh.

Good, long morning

The phenomenon of all three of us being up and relatively active before 10 on a Saturday morning has me smiling and wanting to hide in my room to read and write and make lists and pray and ponder and plan.

The kittens are being very adorable and running all about like the small bundles of barely confined energy that they are. The constant distractions of little grown-ups. And Anne moved the microwave.

Caved in and checked out yet another book before leaving work yesterday. I am reading through our collection of Jose Saramago. The libraries have only the novels that have been translated into English. I am pleased that there are about 10 of them, but am discovering that I would rather read them in the Portuguese. The story isn't hampered by the translation, at least it reads clearly and well, but the language is so specific that I wonder how much of the poetry is lost. I suspect that my feeling is mostly inspired by my desire to learn another language. The motivation to travel frequently brings this need or desire to the fore of my thinking.

Today is a good day. I am glad to be in it.

Beautiful little story

In the midst of my recovery from The Book, I found a little small book by Jose Saramago and fell in love with it as I knelt in the aisle between the shelves not concerned with the other patrons, not feeling the need to take the little book out of the library with me, but feeling the need to finish the lovely tale before my dishy lunch with Andy.

The Tale of the Unknown Island.

It starts with a man petitioning the king for a boat.

Writing that could break through the fog that I'd walked in for two days, the beauty of it was stunning. It's a fairly quick read. A nice stop on the way to whatever else sucks.

Well, of course I was right

The Book is read from cover to cover. In that order. Was informed last night that there is to be a gathering of folk to discuss on Friday, therefore a gag order is in place until then.

Not surprisingly, I am still recovering, after spending six hours at the Coffee House, barely moving, nose in book, almost totally unaware of anything going on around me - with the minor exception of the young woman who had picked up her copy, read the first page or so and then immediately got on her cell phone to call people and tell them she was reading it (hunh?!), and the man who sat down across the end table from me who was startled every time I giggled out loud. I do that. It happies me that I do it, but I can understand how it would be startling.

Anne has it right now, and I'm doing my best not to bombard her with questions. Failing miserably, of course. So, where are you in the book? Are you liking it? Etc.

I will not go on to drop hints or give spoilers or anything. I am not that person.

I am satisfied. And I was right. It is done.

The Grand Cleaning Out

The decision, in it's current permutation, is to travel for 6 months around the Mediterranean and then see what happens after.

That doesn't change the trend in the house towards Anne and Sarah getting rid of shit. I have taken 6 boxes of books to A Novel Idea. 5 shelves worth of books. 5 of them. Started going through the closet today. Probably already have 2 boxes worth on my bed. Still many many to go through. I do have a pile started for Sierra, although I have to remember to add Johnny Tremain to the stack.

Threw out 3/4 of a box worth of papers, with the box. That was fucking exciting.

Made some executive decisions:

Martha Grimes goes. MamaPapa have them all, there is no need to duplicate.
Eco stays. Because I fucking love him. I have all of the fiction and it will take a certain amount of focused energy to collect all of the non-fiction. Unless I am patient and wait for some other fanboy to publish the anthology in 3 volumes including never before collected articles on the cultural phenomenon of Underoos and bad cop shows. I would be this fanboy. Yes. Yes I would.

The Boondocks collection stays. Someday it will be joined by others: Achewood, Pibgorn, MacHall, Sandman and anything else I love that I can find in bulk.
Oh, I remember. I bought a book today. yeah, I know, bite me. It's an Everyman Library Collection book of creepy ghosty poetry. I am totally sold on the Everyman Library Collection books. I have one of TS Eliot's poetry including The Waste Land (dear goddess I love that poem). I am thinking of taking about 4 or 5 of them with me on my travels. They are smallish, well-made and just the thing for a me.

It is fucking hot out.

Love to all.

I am S E Johnson, a Family Company

Really not here today. Spent most of the morning at home trying to convince myself to get going as I have two whole days off in a row once I'm done at work today and there is no reason to get all lazy now.

Riiiiight.

Memory is such an odd thing. Especially if you consider that most events are read differently by the people involved in them even as they are taking place. Went through another box of papers and crap yesterday and while I understand why I kept the things that I did, it feels good to be getting rid of so much of it. Just talking to one of my co-workers about my upcoming travels (not leaving until the beginning of March at least) and how the memories that I record in one place in one way may require a different method in another place. Kind of a fun thought, that. I have no patience with cameras and video even less so, which is going to demand a certain degree of creativity on my part, I suspect. Maybe a Polaroid I can handle. My strength is in words, not necessarily making images with images and color. I can draw, and that might be a handy skill to pick back up before leaving. Hell, it would be handy to have now, just because life is good and there are plenty of ways to record it now.

Knowing that we are all leaving is making it important and easy to be here in the house now and enjoy it while we are still here. Strange to think that while the relationships are not finite, the situation definitely is.

I hope someday to live again with people and feel as good about it as I do right now. This is new for me. I like it.

Realized this morning that I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen in the next five years. I love it! No plan, no routine, no obligation to anything but being the best version of me that I can cuz that works out pretty damn well. Good people around, good food to be eaten, good books, good family, good home. Plus, I really like being me - it's a fun place to be, my brain.

Thinking of Chandreyee in CA having traded tarantulas for painted walls and wine glasses without even realizing that she'd done it. I see why she misses them.

Now I'm all thoughtful and in need of something to fill my gut. Will get back to work.

Love to all,

S

Dillemma-ing day

to blog or to work more on nothing because there's nothing left to do outside of packing boxes, which is not advisable as the strained back is a direct result of said activity.

to journal this morning or to play solitaire for over an hour because I was afraid of what the words that came out of my pen would be.

some few things make more sense. the words in my head, because I believe that words have power, are becoming more clear. meaning that they make enough sense to me that I can see myself saying them out loud to a person, one for whom they would be intended. nothing specific, just clarity and understanding. without these things I am lost and floundering in a sea of mismatched vocabulary and there is nothing good about that.

daydreams about punching people again. not just random people, specific ones. the same specific ones that i've always had, although I have lost the need to deck joe. pete is still open game. and there are a few girls whose heads i'd love to bash in. I figure anne can take care of her own ex-boyfriends, so i'm not waiting around for just any old opportunity. now, the fact that I probably would not be physically able to perform said smack-downs is a huge factor as well. so, instead of feeling weak and unable to live up to my own expectations, I read books.

two more of the Camilleri mysteries featuring the lovely moody grumpy forty-something Inspector Montalbano. While talking to a co-worker yesterday, we started describing him as a Sicilian version of Greg House. I love House. Love the show, love him. Haven't seen fit to get the whole thing and watch it obsessively, I seem to be hanging on to the fringes of detachment at home, but I love it just the same.

Another co-worker overheard parts of our conversation and asked me later if I am dating said Sicillian version of Greg House. He said he couldn't visualize it. I'd like to be able to say that I agree with him. But, I like grumpy ego-maniacal men. I am grumpy and ego-maniacal at times, and it's nice to be able to be around someone who gets it. Although, they usually don't. They tend to be all shocked and weirded out by it. And then they go away. With something much younger and totally yuck.

This has happened over the years more than once, I am sorry to say. (for the naysayers: I historically marry against type, allowing myself to be the grumpy one in the relationship.) I like people who are what they are, and who are willing to speak their minds, and whose minds are even goofier than mine. And I have respect for people who can be angry at the world and not expect me to do anything to fix it. Because that's not my fucking job. When I love someone, it is because of who that person is right now, not chipper or sleeping or sweet or wounded or in the future or in the past, right now, moods and all, breathing here in the space that we are sharing.

I suspect this has more to do with my commitment-phobia (did I mention that I have one of those? yeah, that was a fun morning) than any romantic ideas I have about acceptance and adventure and the nature of true love. Because how can you share a life with someone who cannot bring himself to share his life with you? It's a built-in exit strategy. Only, I don't want out of the relationship I have with myself, so I think I have to do something about that.

In other news, new self-help book coming out called Feel Good Naked. I think I might have to read it. The whole point of it is that if you can feel good about yourself in the raw, you can feel good about yourself in the not-so-raw (would that be cooked?) and that does nothing but help the spiral of goodness and light that lead to salvation here on earth (not a religious version of salvation, just that whole "happiness" thing. Speaking of, did I write about the blurb I read from an interview with a psychologist who has written a book about how stupid humans are about what will make them happy and how we never seem to think about the fact that just as sadness with pass, so will happiness? cool stuff)

Someone got Shot in downtown Lincoln last? What?! What the fuck city do we live in?

Andrea Camilleri. I recommend him.

dream

in the dream there was a man, he winked at me as if to say that he knew the joke and so did i, he wasn't trying to trick me, he wanted to see if i could see how he was doing the trick. it was a coin, a large one - maybe an inch and half across, silver in the middle with a gold edge, like the old francs. on one side the coin was worth 39 cents, on the other side it was worth a dollar. one of the sides had a smaller coin attached to it - magnetically, maybe? he would flip the coin - not toss it, just flip it over and the littler coin would be there, and the player would make a bet with his own coins. it didn't depend so much on what side came up, rather how well the player could match the value based on what he had in his possession. i can't remember which side had the little coin, the dollar or the 39 cents.

somehow it seems important.

evening at home

This is one of those moments when I am aware so much of why my husbands found me so intolerable.

Reading the latest Martha Grimes - Dust. I am terribly in love with Melrose Plant. I have been for years. Never mind that he's fictional, or that even if he weren't fictional he would still be something like 20 years my senior. He's just so unhappy and so content to be that way. Grumpy. Practically an alcoholic when he can get around to it. His friends are elitists and utterly silly. Did I mention the part about the house? The estate. Yep. And the days filled with sitting in front of a fireplace reading or mucking about. I could almost not mind the regularity of murder.

Yes, I read detective novels. And instead of being head over ass for the detective, I pick his moody moldy buddy to fall for, this is the best thing ever written ever in the history of anything. He drinks Old Peculiar. And he reads French poetry. For fun. Because he can. He still smokes.

With Anne off wandering the wilds of Southern France and Brad negotiating the wilds of Lincoln, the house is mine and the CD is classical. But, remember, this is me. Classic Wynton. Trumpet solos by Wynton Marsalis. Cuz, come on, if Ken Burns is going to act like the history of jazz is wrapped up entirely in this family, I can get behind the classical music detours every now and again. Portuguese blues next.

Water crackers, bland goat cheese (oh, did I mention the part about the blandness of the goat cheese? I'm going to try white wine to see if I can pick up any flavors whatsoever that might be getting over-powered. by the water crackers. yeah. the texture is gorgeous, of course, but come on, goat cheese should make your lips go a little tense for a moment, get your tongue off the bottom of your mouth, wake you up to eating, not inspire drunkenness as a last resort for flavor.) but the wine is cheap and enjoyable and i have a carton of smokes at my leisure.

My, but I am insufferable, in that whole i-like-what-i-like-and-fuck-you-
for-interrupting-and-judging-and-i-hope-you-don't-mind-being-married-to-
an-icebox way. It is good to know that there are some things that haven't changed.

Thank the Goddess.

Life and Times of a Toad Suck Shake

Iconium, MO.
From the Book of Acts.
More later - my father tells me good stories.

yes, yes, the day goes on

there is an intermittent hissing noise coming out of something that controls the highly unstable air quality and temperature of this area. it sounds like highly controlled competition peeing.
Country Weekly comes out every two weeks.
Today is the kind of a day where it occurred to me at a very unfortunate moment that it's incredible that the months of the year are called the same thing every year and that every year they happen in the same order. Repeat any common word to yourself over and over and over again until it becomes not only meaningless but almost impossible that the word ever had meaning. Leave it alone and the meaning comes back. I am teetering back and forth between being and being in the reserve room (for that read: not being). Reading for the book, reading for work, reading at all or am i just processing the letters in the alphabet to guide my feet and hands to the right place on the shelf?
I will enjoy processing this so much later - along with the Dyer déjà vu and the connection because of the rain and how is it that lunch at the coffee house is so inexpensive, really? and why oh why does every-fucking-body feel the need to go the noodles place on the one day that I want to go?
must head off and work some more and lost my sense of the reality of words and place and meaning. Yay!

I know you're seeing things

I bought myself a composition book at walgreens the other day. and pens. it is a gift i have not given myself for more than a few years. many many years more than a few in point of fact. it is good. the words are closer to my hands and i have been finding them more easily.

i am reading a book called "yoga for people you can't be bothered to do it." it's a travelogue. seriously. this last 6 days have been so utterly uneventful and yet it seems that so much has happened. it's like the reverse of being on a train watching the world go by. i feel it in my stomach, that slightly off-kilter rocking sensation where normal is moving and standing still makes you sea sick. i drink and have not gotten past tipsy - not even the spins. i am still working on the 2nd bottle of tequila - no, brad, i have not finished it yet. and then i wake up and everything is all topsy turvy. my head is dry, my mouth is spinning, my stomach feels full before i eat, i am fascinated by the colors outside and find my room a terrorizing place to be.

my room. my bedroom. shared by the kittens and wigs. also now the place of pilgrimage for visitors come to see the babies. it is deeply troubling. no, it is more than that. i fucking hate it. i hate that i take people up to see the tiny beings who need to sleep and eat and learn their mother and their family. i hate that we are going to send them away in 8 weeks. (not because i want to keep any one of them. they are moving out.)

i don't want anyone in my room besides me on the best of days. anne has taken to knocking - it's like we live in a dorm. and yet, there is nothing correct about keeping potential families away from the kittens. there is nothing inappropriate about it. and once i move them into anne's room, i'm not going to hate it any less. it's the same thing that i go through when folks visit to see newborns or just to take a look at your new place. you can't interact with the babies - they are too fucking small and if there are too many people around, wigs will move them and move them and freak out and there will be paranoid, stressed out, angry felines everywhere. however, if people don't play with them, they will never be socialized (or so the books tell us).

to me, they are not cute. they are incredible and amazing and loud and they already have their own personalities, which is good because two of them look exactly the fuck alike. they fight and they mewl and they feed and hiss and yawn and get their butts licked and hate it. one of them nuzzles. one of them climbs already. spleen is a boy. ew is a girl. one of the wigs jr's is a girl and one a boy. i think. sexing kittens is not tricky business (what they hell do they care) but i am no vet and haven't had enough experience with this to presume absolute knowledge. i am thinking of finding a place where they can be visited that will allow room for viewing and later room for playing without crowding anyone.

i have jet lag and have not travelled anywhere. everything is covered with the gray of coming to be, and nothing is there yet. that blur of definition in progress that comes when my world finds itself transformed into letter and rhythm and line and action. dogs approach me, cats don't run away, fireflies land on my hand without coaxing. it is not a wrong place, it is different. and the streets and houses and workplaces and people are all the same. they look different to me, as if in a dream only they are real, they are who i know them to be. perhaps this is the kind of thing that i will know from now on. perhaps this is why the writer of that book is so involved in philosophical discussions about the reality of place and the possibility of mental interference on that reality.

my glasses are repaired and yet i find myself taking them off because i see better that way.

Last time for stuff kind of thing

Seeing as how I only have another 11 1/2 months in this town, there are some things which I would like to do here before i do not have the chance to do them again. It's a thing, it helps me keep my focus and enjoy my time here to the best of my abilities - kind of a no regrets kind of a thing.

Movies on the Green starts July 12 and runs every week into August. I'm thinking of skipping Kramer vs Kramer, because it is a movie that I have no need to see, personally. However, 2001? oh, yeah. and M*A*S*H? on the Green? Fuck, there is no way I'm missing that!

I am still up in the air about Jazz in June. I've been. It's been cool. It's fucking hot this year. I don't think I need to put myself through that. Plus, there's yoga class to go to - why complicate things with more than one planned event an evening? I have a hard enough time with more than one planned event in a week!

Must go to Roca Berry Farms this year, as I have never been there before. There was something else, but I can't remember. No need to go to a football game, I've been in the stadium to watch the marching band. That was enough. It was cool, but whatever.

Been to Morrill Hall, never been to the Peace Park. Haven't visited all of the lakes around town - and there are quite a few. Not doing July Jamm again. It has gotten pointless.

The only movie theatres that I haven't been to in town are the new State and the Joyo. In my world, the Joyo is more important. It's actually a part of my family history. Back in the day before children were had by Mel and by Leatha, they were first wed and broke and would save up for the movies once a month. Sometimes they would go to the drive in, taking along a bag of home-popped popcorn. Sometimes they would go to the Joyo. The would go the Dairy Queen on special occasions and cooked at home all of the time. Their office had their desks front to the front and walls of books around them. The crazy quilt that hung in the office in Chicago hung in their office in Lincoln. This town is the town of their history for me. It is the town where my father's mother lived and would call to see if Mama was making fudge. She didn't call every time Mama made fudge, but she never called to ask about it if she wasn't. Here was where my father's father worked at the K Street Power Plant, where he drank and quit drinking in order to save his marriage and his fatherhood, where he is buried. I am glad that I moved here and have my own footsteps to leave behind. I would not leave without knowing that I knew as much of this place as it does of me. But this is not the city of my life. It is not the city of my death. I have distractions here that surpass my abilities to ignore them most days. Every corner brings the possibility for yet another unexpected, potentially undesirable encounter. There are more than enough happy sightings, but I am not of here and it is letting me know.

It's that final fuck before the end is absolute. Best make it a good one.

attempts to focus on a furry day

Rule to add to the list of on dating: never date anyone who doesn't hold the deed to their own ego

Finished a book yesterday called The Terra-Cotta Dog by an Italian man named Andrea Camilleri. What do they call those things? Police procedurals, that's it. Stupid stupid name. It was wonderful and thoughtful and human and there was food food food - no recipes and no gastronomic over-indulgences, just a man who likes to eat and who hates publicity and who is very happy with the routine of his much to the consternation of at least one woman - i like that one of the women in his life is attached without being pathetic. We'll see if the positive feelings continue throughout the next few books. Oh, did I mention that there are more? Yes, there are more. There are shows on Italian television. Happy.

The brains of the story don't show themselves right away, which is kind of nice. By the end, I was totally impressed. Made going back to Hamilton kind of depressing, like going out to lunch and having wonderful conversation with one friend, knowing that dinner will be with someone intriguing but temporary and pointless. Nothing life changing. I do tend to find the ones who will totally fuck up my perception of the world. It's the smallest changes that do the most to change things on a large level. Perhaps that explains my historic pattern of choosing companions whose world views are so drastically different from my own. It is easier to maintain a sense of myself in the face of overwhelming challenge. Then again, it is easier to stay the same when no change is even considered because it is coming from such an opposing force.

The Italian translation works well. I have no idea how it reads in the original. I think I will get around to learning Italian just for the pleasure of reading these and much by Eco in the original. Now that I have the time and energy to do this, well, life is full and good for me. It is what happens when I finally get around to letting go. There is not much in my life than can come back to haunt me that cannot be dealt with somehow. Not that I want to deal with any of it at all ever, mind, I mean, that would be stupid, yeah?

I am again remembering how much of knowing me is in knowing my words. Not authorial intent, not purpose or meaning or symbol. The knowing is in the reading, in the rhythm, the words, the flow of my mind as I let it loose through my fingers. It is a part of me desiring to be a woman of action, words are action, the more carefully I consider them, the more true the action becomes. It is not fair that one who will not read my words will not know me, it is a potentially unreasonable demand to make, though if the intention is to know me, the demand is a necessary one. It is not as though everyone does not place such demands on others. Some demand patience, some an air purifier, some need attention to phone calls and emails and drunken ramblings that repeat themselves with regularity. It is telling, those demands. A tell that I have no need to investigate. I'll leave that to people who analyze relationships, not to the ones who have them.

beginnings again, and again, and again

Yes, yes. I am already bored at work. It will not last long, and I only have a few minutes before other people show up and I start greeting them with "good morning" instead of "good afternoon," so I will take advantage of it.

One of my difficulties with blogging is that I rarely take the time to write a draft and then post. If I ever get around to writing poetry or a short something that I'd like others to see, that will be different, but even these little essays on life and personal events seem somehow scattered when I finally sit down to write. I do not know if it's just part of my process of writing, in order to find my rhythm in the act of writing my brain goes blank and then has to be jump-started, or if I just do better when not typing, or what, but there it is.

These last few days have been very eventful in my psyche. It is a time of year of many birthdays in my life, of people close to me physically and people absent from my completely. One dead almost 9 years, more than a few removed from me by distance and severed connections, a handful of peripheral acquaintances, a few friends and one of my roommates. And then, of course, the yearly facing up to the fact that I am getting older. I like getting older. Childhood sucked. Not because of my parents or because I was unhappy. I don't deal well with authority. I never have. As a child, almost every event that took place outside of my home involved a litany of "do this" or "don't do this." I believe that it is the same with most, if not all, children. I took it personally. One of the drawbacks of being preternaturally alert and sensitive.

And then there was this looming sense of loss. Loss of innocence. Loss of trust. Loss of laughter and tears. Loss of loved ones. And the ever awful reality that it is harder to accept that happiness is a perfectly acceptable state of being even in the face of those losses than it is to just be miserable and caught up in them. Yes, the hurt is worse while you feel it and no the void is never quite gone from your world, but it is okay and right and good to go on and not dwell. There can be so much guilt in not dwelling, like you aren't supposed to be happy when you miss someone. Someone died and they will never be around again and somehow you don't lose just a part of you, but all of you and that's what's supposed to happen otherwise the love that you felt for that person has been invalidated. Bullshit. Natural. Still bullshit.

So, I let go. Stopped it. And then.... besides the truly fucked up dreams involving a co-worker of mine appearing in the weirdest places speaking as though he was narrating the events in my head, suddenly there was clarity. Clarity that involved perspective. Clarity that hurt, as clarity does (ever wonder why I take my glasses off so much? yeah, that's part of it). I will not say epiphany, because those get so boring after a while. Which is cool, except that it brought back all of the stuff that I have decided to not focus on so much, which is to say that there are plenty of other things to think about which are much more interesting - why does Laurel K. Hamilton suck so much (There's so much potential, and I do keep reading these awful books, and I just can't stop and well, they are not so much good. Parts are good. Some parts. ow. my brain hurts. At least they aren't going to leave a permanent scar on my brain or my soul)? - can I make a melted crayon mobile with stuff that I have on hand? - do you suppose I can figure out a way to turn old bed sheets into a yoga mat? - what can happen to make the vacuum cleaners work better? - does a cat with wings have any real chance of learning how to fly with them? - do I really only need 4 hours of sleep or is it just my brain taking it out on my body for reasons that probably have nothing to do with me, but could really be figured out if only I were willing to involve myself? - You know, important stuff.

That happened, and there was yoga and today, oh my stars do I hurt! What?! I'll have to stretch out again this afternoon before the roast duck. Did I mention the roast duck? I don't think so.

Also, lots of good food this month. Most of it not bought by me. All of it with good company.

Sodapop is wonderful. It is at the Playhouse. Go and see it next weekend. Buy pop. Laugh. It is good. I tell you this honestly, even above my personal bias (cuz Robie rocks!). It is good.

fun with photos

woke up this morning - at 5 - after what must have been an incredibly deep sleep. don't remember any dreams, though i know that something was going on in there, i just know it.

had some nice chat time with anne and some nice cuddle time with the kitten who is now pacing about and trying to help me type by pushing her soft little face under my thumbs. seriously, Street, there don't need to be that many spaces between words.

but, something that did occur to me, finally, is the scanner, that modern marvel of technology. so, now that i have my new page, after having deleted the other one in a moody drunken snit (which has passed as moods and alcohol do)(originally spelled 'moddy drunked'), i can (and shall spend the morning doing so) add pictures of my life before all of the craziness hit. this happies me muchly.

it is, i think, somewhat telling that there just aren't that many pictures of me from the last 12 years. partly i discovered that i had issues hanging out with folk who only wanted to look at old photo albums and take pictures instead of doing things, and then there was that guy on the Seine a million years ago who tried to tell me that he had no memories without pictures. he did take a picture of me, sitting on a bench, all gray stone and sky and air dressed in black with a notebook, looking every bit the wandering american girl looking for the right indie coming of wisdom film. he upset my reverie on an odd day wherein the only solace i needed at that moment i had found.

i remember him vividly, skinny, brown, Algerian. a man with a country and no nation, being french, but not really because of the nature of colonization and cultural bias. i remember he seemed lost, felt lost, out of place, travelling, looking, holding memories long enough to make them stand still. he had a nice voice and wasn't all that pushy. just bad timing or the wrong question. he would have been better off just taking the picture when i didn't notice. but he wanted interaction. he didn't want to do as i was doing, separating myself from people so that i could step back and see the world for a moment, look at it and try to tell what had changed, how i was to be afterwards. at 16 there is much of that to be had, at least there was for me. i never understood the rationale behind adults telling us that we didn't understand that we were changing, we wouldn't understand for years. i wondered if they remembered as much as they said that they did. it did not engender trust in adults. i knew perfectly well that all was different. every day something was new. i didn't know how to make it a part of me or my life, but i knew that it was changing. and i dove into it with speed that would make a cheetah blush.

it was good. i am glad for it. i do not know what will happen next. i do not have to. i am old enough to not have a plan and to be okay with that.

i am happy and a little bit wierded out to go through these old photos. to see a face that i know is what i carried with me, what i still carry with me, and not to recognize it, not to remember seeing it in the mirror or putting makeup on it, or being willing to accept what other people saw. i forget how mutable things are and have been - the subtle shifts of light that turn blue eyes green or brown or turquoise. the set of the face that makes it seem so removed or placid or angry or pleased. it is not a different face, rather a different set of filters through which it is seen.

my coffee is now cold, and there is fresh to be had. i have many more places to look for photos and scan them in. it will be a good morning and a good day. too gray to move about, too blanketed not to.

Thoughts on the walk to work

Who am I?

I am a creature who floats in and around the world, watching the sun change the color of things all day long, leaving me serene with the coming of night.

I hear the birds and watch the faces of passersby. Critters claim my undivided attention. Moving water commands me to stop and listen, to study the colors of it as it passes rocks, grass, floating bits of debris.

Bridges hold endless fascination for me. I observe cars and their drivers, buses and their passengers.

The stoplight is a never-ending succession of individuals hiding themselves in motion and blinking lights.

Entering the doors of work, I become a part of something, of the smell and feel of books, of the words pored and suffered over and bound into some barely controllable space.

I am undefined and free from structure, autonomous in my responsibilities.

Out of my purse comes, as it must, the length of blue fabric attached to a card, defining me as Staff.